The Danish History, Books I-IX

Produced by Douglas B. Killings and David Widger

THE DANISH HISTORY,

BOOKS I-IX

by

Saxo Grammaticus

("Saxo the Learned") fl. Late 12th - Early 13th Century A.D.

PREPARER'S NOTE:

Originally written in Latin in the early years of the 13th

Century A.D. by the Danish historian Saxo, of whom little is

known except his name.

The text of this edition is based on that published as

"The Nine Books of the Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus",

translated by Oliver Elton (Norroena Society, New York, 1905).

This edition is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN in the United States.

This electronic edition was edited, proofed, and prepared by

Douglas B. Killings.

The preparer would like to thank Mr. James W. Marchand and Mr.

Jessie D. Hurlbut for their invaluable assistance in the

production of this electronic text. Thank you. I am indebted to

you both.

Although Saxo wrote 16 books of his "Danish History", only the

first nine were ever translated by Mr. Oliver Elton; it is these

nine books that are here included. As far as the preparer knows,

there is (unfortunately) no public domain English translation of

Books X-XVI. Those interested in the latter books should search

for the translation mentioned below.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY:

ORIGINAL TEXT--

Olrik, J and Raeder (Ed.): "Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum"

(Copenhagen, 1931).

Dansk Nationallitteraert Arkiv: "Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum" (DNA,

Copenhagen, 1996). Web-based Latin edition of Saxo, substantiallly based

on the above edition; currently at the

OTHER TRANSLATIONS--

Fisher, Peter (Trans.) and Hilda Ellis Davidson (Ed.): "Saxo

Grammaticus: History of the Danes" (Brewer, Cambridge, 1979).

RECOMMENDED READING--

Jones, Gwyn: "History of the Vikings" (Oxford University Press, Oxford,

1968, 1973, 1984).

Sturlson, Snorri: "The Heimskringla" (Translation: Samual Laing, London,

1844; released as Online Medieval and Classical Library E-text

#15, 1996). Web version at the following URL:

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/OMACL/Heimskringla/

INTRODUCTION.

SAXO'S POSITION.

Saxo Grammaticus, or "The Lettered", one of the notable historians of

the Middle Ages, may fairly be called not only the earliest chronicler

of Denmark, but her earliest writer. In the latter half of the twelfth

century, when Iceland was in the flush of literary production, Denmark

lingered behind. No literature in her vernacular, save a few Runic

inscriptions, has survived. Monkish annals, devotional works, and lives

were written in Latin; but the chronicle of Roskild, the necrology of

Lund, the register of gifts to the cloister of Sora, are not literature.

Neither are the half-mythological genealogies of kings; and besides, the

mass of these, though doubtless based on older verses that are lost,

are not proved to be, as they stand, prior to Saxo. One man only, Saxo's

elder contemporary, Sueno Aggonis, or Sweyn (Svend) Aageson, who wrote

about 1185, shares or anticipates the credit of attempting a connected

record. His brief draft of annals is written in rough mediocre Latin.

It names but a few of the kings recorded by Saxo, and tells little that

Saxo does not. Yet there is a certain link between the two writers.

Sweyn speaks of Saxo with respect; he not obscurely leaves him the task

of filling up his omissions. Both writers, servants of the brilliant

Bishop Absalon, and probably set by him upon their task, proceed, like

Geoffrey of Monmouth, by gathering and editing mythical matter. This

they more or less embroider, and arrive in due course insensibly at

actual history. Both, again, thread their stories upon a genealogy of

kings in part legendary. Both write at the spur of patriotism, both to

let Denmark linger in the race for light and learning, and desirous to

save her glories, as other nations have saved theirs, by a record. But

while Sweyn only made a skeleton chronicle, Saxo leaves a memorial in

which historian and philologist find their account. His seven later

books are the chief Danish authority for the times which they relate;

his first nine, here translated, are a treasure of myth and folk-lore.

Of the songs and stories which Denmark possessed from the common

Scandinavian stock, often her only native record is in Saxo's Latin.

Thus, as a chronicler both of truth and fiction, he had in his own

land no predecessor, nor had he any literary tradition behind him.

Single-handed, therefore, he may be said to have lifted the dead-weight

against him, and given Denmark a writer. The nature of his work will be

discussed presently.

LIFE OF SAXO.

Of Saxo little is known but what he himself indicates, though much

doubtful supposition has gathered round his name.

That he was born a Dane his whole language implies; it is full of a glow

of aggressive patriotism. He also often praises the Zealanders at the

expense of other Danes, and Zealand as the centre of Denmark; but that

is the whole contemporary evidence for the statement that he was a

Zealander. This statement is freely taken for granted three centuries

afterwards by Urne in the first edition of the book (1514), but is not

traced further back than an epitomator, who wrote more than 200 years

after Saxo's death. Saxo tells us that his father and grandfather fought

for Waldemar the First of Denmark, who reigned from 1157 to 1182. Of

these men we know nothing further, unless the Saxo whom he names as one

of Waldemar's admirals be his grandfather, in which case his family was

one of some distinction and his father and grandfather probably "King's

men". But Saxo was a very common name, and we shall see the licence of

hypothesis to which this fact has given rise. The notice, however,

helps us approximately towards Saxo's birth-year. His grandfather, if

he fought for Waldemar, who began to reign in 1157, can hardly have been

born before 1100, nor can Saxo himself have been born before 1145 or

1150. But he was undoubtedly born before 1158, since he speaks of the

death of Bishop Asker, which took place in that year, as occurring "in

our time". His life therefore covers and overlaps the last half of the

twelfth century.

His calling and station in life are debated. Except by the anonymous

Zealand chronicler, who calls him Saxo "the Long", thus giving us the

one personal detail we have, he has been universally known as Saxo

"Grammaticus" ever since the epitomator of 1431 headed his compilation

with the words, "A certain notable man of letters ("grammaticus"), a

Zealander by birth, named Saxo, wrote," etc. It is almost certain that

this general term, given only to men of signal gifts and learning,

became thus for the first time, and for good, attached to Saxo's name.

Such a title, in the Middle Ages, usually implied that its owner was

a churchman, and Saxo's whole tone is devout, though not conspicuously

professional.

But a number of Saxos present themselves in the same surroundings with

whom he has been from time to time identified. All he tells us himself

is, that Absalon, Archbishop of Lund from 1179 to 1201, pressed him, who

was "the least of his companions, since all the rest refused the task",

to write the history of Denmark, so that it might record its glories

like other nations. Absalon was previously, and also after his

promotion, Bishop of Roskild, and this is the first circumstance giving

colour to the theory--which lacks real evidence--that Saxo the historian

was the same as a certain Saxo, Provost of the Chapter of Roskild,

whose death is chronicled in a contemporary hand without any mark of

distinction. It is unlikely that so eminent a man would be thus barely

named; and the appended eulogy and verses identifying the Provost and

the historian are of later date. Moreover, the Provost Saxo went on

a mission to Paris in 1165, and was thus much too old for the theory.

Nevertheless, the good Bishop of Roskild, Lave Urne, took this identity

for granted in the first edition, and fostered the assumption. Saxo was

a cleric; and could such a man be of less than canonical rank? He was

(it was assumed) a Zealander; he was known to be a friend of Absalon,

Bishop of Roskild. What more natural than that he should have been the

Provost Saxo? Accordingly this latter worthy had an inscription in gold

letters, written by Lave Urne himself, affixed to the wall opposite his

tomb.

Even less evidence exists for identifying our Saxo with the scribe of

that name--a comparative menial--who is named in the will of Bishop

Absalon; and hardly more warranted is the theory that he was a member,

perhaps a subdeacon, of the monastery of St. Laurence, whose secular

canons formed part of the Chapter of Lund. It is true that Sweyn

Aageson, Saxo's senior by about twenty years, speaks (writing about

1185) of Saxo as his "contubernalis". Sweyn Aageson is known to have had

strong family connections with the monastery of St. Laurence; but there

is only a tolerably strong probability that he, and therefore that Saxo,

was actually a member of it. ("Contubernalis" may only imply comradeship

in military service.) Equally doubtful is the consequence that

since Saxo calls himself "one of the least" of Absalon's "followers"

("comitum"), he was probably, if not the inferior officer, who is called

an "acolitus", at most a sub-deacon, who also did the work of a superior

"acolitus". This is too poor a place for the chief writer of Denmark,

high in Absalon's favor, nor is there any direct testimony that Saxo

held it.

His education is unknown, but must have been careful. Of his training

and culture we only know what his book betrays. Possibly, like other

learned Danes, then and afterwards, he acquired his training and

knowledge at some foreign University. Perhaps, like his contemporary

Anders Suneson, he went to Paris; but we cannot tell. It is not even

certain that he had a degree; for there is really little to identify him

with the "M(agister) Saxo" who witnessed the deed of Absalon founding

the monastery at Sora.

THE HISTORY.

How he was induced to write his book has been mentioned. The expressions

of modesty Saxo uses, saying that he was "the least" of Absalon's

"followers", and that "all the rest refused the task", are not to be

taken to the letter. A man of his parts would hardly be either the least

in rank, or the last to be solicited. The words, however, enable us to

guess an upward limit for the date of the inception of the work. Absalon

became Archbishop in 1179, and the language of the Preface (written,

as we shall see, last) implies that he was already Archbishop when he

suggested the History to Saxo. But about 1185 we find Sweyn Aageson

complimenting Saxo, and saying that Saxo "had `determined' to set forth

all the deeds" of Sweyn Estridson, in his eleventh book, "at greater

length in a more elegant style". The exact bearing of this notice on

the date of Saxo's History is doubtful. It certainly need not imply that

Saxo had already written ten books, or indeed that he had written

any, of his History. All we call say is, that by 1185 a portion of the

history was planned. The order in which its several parts were composed,

and the date of its completion, are not certainly known, as Absalon died

in 1201. But the work was not then finished; for, at the end of Bk. XI,

one Birger, who died in 1202, is mentioned as still alive.

We have, however, a yet later notice. In the Preface, which, as its

whole language implies, was written last, Saxo speaks of Waldemar II

having "encompassed (`complexus') the ebbing and flowing waves of Elbe."

This language, though a little vague, can hardly refer to anything but

an expedition of Waldemar to Bremen in 1208. The whole History was in

that case probably finished by about 1208. As to the order in which its

parts were composed, it is likely that Absalon's original instruction

was to write a history of Absalon's own doings. The fourteenth and

succeeding books deal with these at disproportionate length, and

Absalon, at the expense even of Waldemar, is the protagonist. Now Saxo

states in his Preface that he "has taken care to follow the statements

("asserta") of Absalon, and with obedient mind and pen to include both

his own doings and other men's doings of which he learnt."

The latter books are, therefore, to a great extent, Absalon's personally

communicated memoirs. But we have seen that Absalon died in 1201,

and that Bk. xi, at any rate, was not written after 1202. It almost

certainly follows that the latter books were written in Absalon's

life; but the Preface, written after them, refers to events in 1208.

Therefore, unless we suppose that the issue was for some reason

delayed, or that Saxo spent seven years in polishing--which is not

impossible--there is some reason to surmise that he began with that

portion of his work which was nearest to his own time, and added

the previous (especially the first nine, or mythical) books, as a

completion, and possibly as an afterthought. But this is a point which

there is no real means of settling. We do not know how late the Preface

was written, except that it must have been some time between 1208 and

1223, when Anders Suneson ceased to be Archbishop; nor do we know when

Saxo died.

HISTORY OF THE WORK.

Nothing is stranger than that a work of such force and genius, unique in

Danish letters, should have been forgotten for three hundred years, and

have survived only in an epitome and in exceedingly few manuscripts. The

history of the book is worth recording. Doubtless its very merits, its

"marvellous vocabulary, thickly-studded maxims, and excellent variety of

images," which Erasmus admired long afterwards, sealed it to the vulgar.

A man needed some Latin to appreciate it, and Erasmus' natural wonder

"how a Dane at that day could have such a force of eloquence" is a

measure of the rarity both of the gift and of a public that could

appraise it. The epitome (made about 1430) shows that Saxo was felt to

be difficult, its author saying: "Since Saxo's work is in many places

diffuse, and many things are said more for ornament than for historical

truth, and moreover his style is too obscure on account of the number

of terms ("plurima vocabula") and sundry poems, which are unfamiliar to

modern times, this opuscle puts in clear words the more notable of

the deeds there related, with the addition of some that happened after

Saxo's death." A Low-German version of this epitome, which appeared in

1485, had a considerable vogue, and the two together "helped to drive

the history out of our libraries, and explains why the annalists and

geographers of the Middle Ages so seldom quoted it." This neglect

appears to have been greatest of all in Denmark, and to have lasted

until the appearance of the "First Edition" in 1511.

The first impulse towards this work by which Saxo was saved, is found

in a letter from the Bishop of Roskild, Lave Urne, dated May 1512, to

Christian Pederson, Canon of Lund, whom he compliments as a lover of

letters, antiquary, and patriot, and urges to edit and publish "tam

divinum latinae eruditionis culmen et splendorem Saxonem nostrum".

Nearly two years afterwards Christian Pederson sent Lave Urne a copy of

the first edition, now all printed, with an account of its history. "I

do not think that any mortal was more inclined and ready for" the task.

"When living at Paris, and paying heed to good literature, I twice sent

a messenger at my own charges to buy a faithful copy at any cost, and

bring it back to me. Effecting nothing thus, I went back to my country

for this purpose; I visited and turned over all the libraries, but still

could not pull out a Saxo, even covered with beetles, bookworms, mould,

and dust. So stubbornly had all the owners locked it away." A worthy

prior, in compassion offered to get a copy and transcribe it with his

own hand, but Christian, in respect for the prior's rank, absurdly

declined. At last Birger, the Archbishop of Lund, by some strategy, got

a copy, which King Christian the Second allowed to be taken to Paris on

condition of its being wrought at "by an instructed and skilled graver

(printer)." Such a person was found in Jodocus Badius Ascenshls, who

adds a third letter written by himself to Bishop Urne, vindicating his

application to Saxo of the title Grammaticus, which he well defines

as "one who knows how to speak or write with diligence, acuteness, or

knowledge." The beautiful book he produced was worthy of the zeal, and

unsparing, unweariable pains, which had been spent on it by the band

of enthusiasts, and it was truly a little triumph of humanism. Further

editions were reprinted during the sixteenth century at Basic and at

Frankfort-on-Main, but they did not improve in any way upon the first;

and the next epoch in the study of Saxo was made by the edition and

notes of Stephanus Johansen Stephanius, published at Copenhagen in

the middle of the seventeenth century (1644). Stephanius, the first

commentator on Saxo, still remains the best upon his language. Immense

knowledge of Latin, both good and bad (especially of the authors Saxo

imitated), infinite and prolix industry, a sharp eye for the text, and

continence in emendation, are not his only virtues. His very bulkiness

and leisureliness are charming; he writes like a man who had eternity to

write in, and who knew enough to fill it, and who expected readers of an

equal leisure. He also prints some valuable notes signed with the famous

name of Bishop Bryniolf of Skalholt, a man of force and talent, and

others by Casper Barth, "corculum Musarum", as Stephanius calls him,

whose textual and other comments are sometimes of use, and who worked

with a MS. of Saxo. The edition of Klotz, 1771, based on that of

Stephanius, I have but seen; however, the first standard commentary is

that begun by P. E. Muller, Bishop of Zealand, and finished after his

death by Johan Velschow, Professor of History at Copenhagen, where the

first part of the work, containing text and notes, was published in

1839; the second, with prolegomena and fuller notes, appearing in 1858.

The standard edition, containing bibliography, critical apparatus based

on all the editions and MS. fragments, text, and index, is the admirable

one of that indefatigable veteran, Alfred Holder, Strasburg, 1886.

Hitherto the translations of Saxo have been into Danish. The first that

survives, by Anders Soffrinson Vedel, dates from 1575, some sixty years

after the first edition. In such passages as I have examined it is

vigorous, but very free, and more like a paraphrase than a translation,

Saxo's verses being put into loose prose. Yet it has had a long life,

having been modified by Vedel's grandson, John Laverentzen, in 1715,

and reissued in 1851. The present version has been much helped by the

translation of Seier Schousbolle, published at Copenhagen in 1752. It is

true that the verses, often the hardest part, are put into periphrastic

verse (by Laurentius Thura, c. 1721), and Schousbolle often does not

face a difficulty; but he gives the sense of Saxo simply and concisely.

The lusty paraphrase by the enthusiastic Nik. Fred. Sev. Grundtvig, of

which there have been several editions, has also been of occasional use.

No other translations, save of a scrap here and there into German, seem

to be extant.

THE MSS.

It will be understood, from what has been said, that no complete MS. of

Saxo's History is known. The epitomator in the fourteenth century, and

Krantz in the seventeenth, had MSS. before them; and there was that one

which Christian Pedersen found and made the basis of the first edition,

but which has disappeared. Barth had two manuscripts, which are said to

have been burnt in 1636. Another, possessed by a Swedish parish

priest, Aschaneus, in 1630, which Stephenhis unluckily did not know of,

disappeared in the Royal Archives of Stockholm after his death. These

are practically the only MSS. of which we have sure information,

excepting the four fragments that are now preserved. Of these by far the

most interesting is the "Angers Fragment."

This was first noticed in 1863, in the Angers Library, where it was

found degraded into the binding of a number of devotional works and a

treatise on metric, dated 1459, and once the property of a priest at

Alencon. In 1877 M. Gaston Paris called the attention of the learned to

it, and the result was that the Danish Government received it next year

in exchange for a valuable French manuscript which was in the Royal

Library at Copenhagen. This little national treasure, the only piece of

contemporary writing of the History, has been carefully photographed and

edited by that enthusiastic and urbane scholar, Christian Bruun. In the

opinion both of Dr. Vigfusson and M. Paris, the writing dates from about

1200; and this date, though difficult to determine, owing to the paucity

of Danish MSS. of the 12th and early lath centuries, is confirmed by the

character of the contents. For there is little doubt that the Fragment

shows us Saxo in the labour of composition. The MSS. looks as if

expressly written for interlineation. Besides a marginal gloss by a

later, fourteenth century hand, there are two distinct sets of variants,

in different writings, interlined and running over into the margin.

These variants are much more numerous in the prose than in the verse.

The first set are in the same hand as the text, the second in another

hand: but both of them have the character, not of variants from some

other MSS., but of alternative expressions put down tentatively. If

either hand is Saxo's it is probably the second. He may conceivably

have dictated both at different times to different scribes. No other man

would tinker the style in this fashion. A complete translation of all

these changes has been deemed unnecessary in these volumes; there is

a full collation in Holder's "Apparatus Criticus". The verdict of the

Angers-Fragment, which, for the very reason mentioned, must not be taken

as the final form of the text, nor therefore, despite its antiquity,

as conclusive against the First Edition where the two differ, is to

confirm, so far as it goes, the editing of Ascensius and Pederson. There

are no vital differences, and the care of the first editors, as well as

the authority of their source, is thus far amply vindicated.

A sufficient account of the other fragments will be found in Holder's

list. In 1855 M. Kall-Rasmussen found in the private archives at

Kronborg a scrap of fourteenth century MS., containing a short passage

from Bk. vii. Five years later G. F. Lassen found, at Copenhagen, a

fragment of Bk. vi believed to be written in North Zealand, and in

the opinion of Bruun belonging to the same codex as Kall-Rasmussen's

fragment. Of another longish piece, found in Copenhagen at the end of

the seventeenth century by Johannes Laverentzen, and belonging to a

codex burnt in the fire of 1728, a copy still extant in the Copenhagen

Museum, was made by Otto Sperling. For fragments, either extant or

alluded to, of the later books, the student should consult the carefully

collated text of Holder. The whole MS. material, therefore, covers but

a little of Saxo's work, which was practically saved for Europe by the

perseverance and fervour for culture of a single man, Bishop Urne.

SAXO AS A WRITER.

Saxo's countrymen have praised without stint his remarkable style, for

he has a style. It is often very bad; but he writes, he is not in

vain called Grammaticus, the man of letters. His style is not merely

remarkable considering its author's difficulties; it is capable at need

of pungency and of high expressiveness. His Latin is not that of the

Golden Age, but neither is it the common Latin of the Middle Ages. There

are traces of his having read Virgil and Cicero. But two writers in

particular left their mark on him. The first and most influential is

Valerius Maximus, the mannered author of the "Memorabilia", who lived in

the first half of the first century, and was much relished in the Middle

Ages. From him Saxo borrowed a multitude of phrases, sometimes apt but

often crabbed and deformed, as well as an exemplary and homiletic turn

of narrative. Other idioms, and perhaps the practice of interspersing

verses amid prose (though this also was a twelfth century Icelandic

practice), Saxo found in a fifth-century writer, Martianus Capella, the

pedantic author of the "De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii" Such models

may have saved him from a base mediaeval vocabulary; but they were not

worthy of him, and they must answer for some of his falsities of style.

These are apparent. His accumulation of empty and motley phrase, like a

garish bunch of coloured bladders; his joy in platitude and pomposity,

his proneness to say a little thing in great words, are only too easy

to translate. We shall be well content if our version also gives some

inkling of his qualities; not only of what Erasmus called his "wonderful

vocabulary, his many pithy sayings, and the excellent variety of his

images"; but also of his feeling for grouping, his barbaric sense of

colour, and his stateliness. For he moves with resource and strength

both in prose and verse, and is often only hindered by his own wealth.

With no kind of critical tradition to chasten him, his force is often

misguided and his work shapeless; but he stumbles into many splendours.

FOLK LORE INDEX.

The mass of archaic incidents, beliefs, and practices recorded by the

12th-century writer seemed to need some other classification than a bare

alphabetic index. The present plan, a subject-index practically,

has been adopted with a view to the needs of the anthropologist and

folk-lorist. Its details have been largely determined by the bulk and

character of the entries themselves. No attempt has been made to

supply full parallels from any save the more striking and obvious old

Scandinavian sources, the end being to classify material rather than to

point out its significance of geographic distribution. With regard to

the first three heads, the reader who wishes to see how Saxo compares

with the Old Northern poems may be referred to the Grimm Centenary

papers, Oxford, 1886, and the Corpus Poeticurn Boreale, Oxford, 1883.

POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS.

King--As portrayed by Saxo, the ideal king should be (as in "Beowulf's

Lay") generous, brave and just. He should be a man of accomplishments,

of unblemished body, presumably of royal kin (peasant-birth is

considered a bar to the kingship), usually a son or a nephew, or brother

of his foregoer (though no strict rule of succession seems to appear in

Saxo), and duly chosen and acknowledged at the proper place of election.

In Denmark this was at a stone circle, and the stability of these

stones was taken as an omen for the king's reign. There are exceptional

instances noted, as the serf-king Eormenric (cf. Guthred-Canute

of Northumberland), whose noble birth washed out this blot of his

captivity, and there is a curious tradition of a conqueror setting his

hound as king over a conquered province in mockery.

The king was of age at twelve. A king of seven years of age has twelve

Regents chosen in the Moot, in one case by lot, to bring him up and rule

for him till his majority. Regents are all appointed in Denmark, in

one case for lack of royal blood, one to Scania, one to Zealand, one to

Funen, two to Jutland. Underkings and Earls are appointed by kings, and

though the Earl's office is distinctly official, succession is sometimes

given to the sons of faithful fathers. The absence of a settled

succession law leads (as in Muslim States) to rebellions and plots.

Kings sometimes abdicated, giving up the crown perforce to a rival, or

in high age to a kinsman. In heathen times, kings, as Thiodwulf tells us

in the case of Domwald and Yngwere, were sometimes sacrificed for

better seasons (African fashion), and Wicar of Norway perishes, like

Iphigeneia, to procure fair winds. Kings having to lead in war, and

sometimes being willing to fight wagers of battle, are short-lived as a

rule, and assassination is a continual peril, whether by fire at a time

of feast, of which there are numerous examples, besides the classic one

on which Biarea-mal is founded and the not less famous one of Hamlet's

vengeance, or whether by steel, as with Hiartuar, or by trick, as in

Wicar's case above cited. The reward for slaying a king is in one case

120 gold lbs.; 19 "talents" of gold from each ringleader, 1 oz. of gold

from each commoner, in the story of Godfred, known as Ref's gild, "i.e.,

Fox tax". In the case of a great king, Frode, his death is concealed for

three years to avoid disturbance within and danger from without. Captive

kings were not as a rule well treated. A Slavonic king, Daxo, offers

Ragnar's son Whitesark his daughter and half his realm, or death, and

the captive strangely desires death by fire. A captive king is exposed,

chained to wild beasts, thrown into a serpent-pit, wherein Ragnar is

given the fate of the elder Gunnar in the Eddic Lays, Atlakvida. The

king is treated with great respect by his people, he is finely clad, and

his commands are carried out, however abhorrent or absurd, as long as

they do not upset customary or statute law. The king has slaves in

his household, men and women, besides his guard of housecarles and his

bearsark champions. A king's daughter has thirty slaves with her, and

the footmaiden existed exactly as in the stories of the Wicked Waiting

Maid. He is not to be awakened in his slumbers (cf. St. Olaf's Life,

where the naming of King Magnus is the result of adherence to this

etiquette). A champion weds the king's leman.

His thanes are created by the delivery of a sword, which the king

bolds by the blade and the thane takes by the hilt. (English earls were

created by the girding with a sword. "Taking treasure, and weapons

and horses, and feasting in a hall with the king" is synonymous with

thane-hood or gesith-ship in "Beowulf's Lay"). A king's thanes must

avenge him if he falls, and owe him allegiance. (This was paid in the

old English monarchies by kneeling and laying the head down at the

lord's knee.)

The trick by which the Mock-king, or King of the Beggars (parallel to

our Boy-bishop, and perhaps to that enigmatic churls' King of the "O. E.

Chronicle", s.a. 1017, Eadwiceorla-kyning) gets allegiance paid to

him, and so secures himself in his attack on the real king, is cleverly

devised. The king, besides being a counsel giver himself, and speaking

the law, has "counsellors", old and wise men, "sapientes" (like the

0. E. Thyle). The aged warrior counsellor, as Starcad here and Master

Hildebrand in the "Nibelungenlied", is one type of these persons,

another is the false counsellor, as Woden in guise of Bruni, another

the braggart, as Hunferth in "Beowulf's Lay". At "moots" where laws

are made, kings and regents chosen, cases judged, resolutions taken of

national importance, there are discussions, as in that armed most the

host.

The king has, beside his estates up and down the country, sometimes

(like Hrothgar with his palace Heorot in "Beowulf's Lay") a great fort

and treasure house, as Eormenric, whose palace may well have really

existed. There is often a primitive and negroid character about

dwellings of formidable personages, heads placed on stakes adorn their

exterior, or shields are ranged round the walls.

The provinces are ruled by removable earls appointed by the king,

often his own kinsmen, sometimes the heads of old ruling families. The

"hundreds" make up the province or subkingdom. They may be granted to

king's thanes, who became "hundred-elders". Twelve hundreds are in one

case bestowed upon a man.

The "yeoman's" estate is not only honourable but useful, as Starcad

generously and truly acknowledges. Agriculture should be fostered and

protected by the king, even at the cost of his life.

But gentle birth and birth royal place certain families above the common

body of freemen (landed or not); and for a commoner to pretend to a

king's daughter is an act of presumption, and generally rigorously

resented.

The "smith" was the object of a curious prejudice, probably akin to that

expressed in St. Patrick's "Lorica", and derived from the smith's having

inherited the functions of the savage weapon-maker with his poisons and

charms. The curious attempt to distinguish smiths into good and

useful swordsmiths and base and bad goldsmiths seems a merely modern

explanation: Weland could both forge swords and make ornaments of

metal. Starcad's loathing for a smith recalls the mockery with which the

Homeric gods treat Hephaistos.

Slavery.--As noble birth is manifest by fine eyes and personal beauty,

courage and endurance, and delicate behaviour, so the slave nature

is manifested by cowardice, treachery, unbridled lust, bad manners,

falsehood, and low physical traits. Slaves had, of course, no right

either of honour, or life, or limb. Captive ladies are sent to a

brothel; captive kings cruelly put to death. Born slaves were naturally

still less considered, they were flogged; it was disgraceful to

kill them with honourable steel; to accept a slight service from a

slave-woman was beneath old Starcad's dignity. A man who loved another

man's slave-woman, and did base service to her master to obtain her as

his consort, was looked down on. Slaves frequently ran away to escape

punishment for carelessness, or fault, or to gain liberty.

CUSTOMARY LAW.

The evidence of Saxo to archaic law and customary institutions is pretty

much (as we should expect) that to be drawn from the Icelandic Sagas,

and even from the later Icelandic rimur and Scandinavian kaempe-viser.

But it helps to complete the picture of the older stage of North

Teutonic Law, which we are able to piece together out of our various

sources, English, Icelandic, and Scandinavian. In the twilight of Yore

every glowworm is a helper to the searcher.

There are a few MAXIMS of various times, but all seemingly drawn from

custom cited or implied by Saxo as authoritative:--

"It is disgraceful to be ruled by a woman."--The great men of Teutonic

nations held to this maxim. There is no Boudicea or Maidhbh in our own

annals till after the accession of the Tudors, when Great Eliza rivals

her elder kins-women's glories. Though Tacitus expressly notices one

tribe or confederacy, the Sitones, within the compass of his Germania,

ruled by a woman, as an exceptional case, it was contrary to the feeling

of mediaeval Christendom for a woman to be emperor; it was not till late

in the Middle Ages that Spain saw a queen regnant, and France has never

yet allowed such rule. It was not till long after Saxo that the great

queen of the North, Margaret, wielded a wider sway than that rejected by

Gustavus' wayward daughter.

"The suitor ought to urge his own suit."--This, an axiom of the most

archaic law, gets evaded bit by bit till the professional advocate takes

the place of the plaintiff. "Njal's Saga", in its legal scenes, shows

the transition period, when, as at Rome, a great and skilled chief

was sought by his client as the supporter of his cause at the Moot. In

England, the idea of representation at law is, as is well known, late

and largely derived from canon law practice.

"To exact the blood-fine was as honourable as to take vengeance."--This

maxim, begotten by Interest upon Legality, established itself both in

Scandinavia and Arabia. It marks the first stage in a progress which,

if carried out wholly, substitutes law for feud. In the society of the

heathen Danes the maxim was a novelty; even in Christian Denmark men

sometimes preferred blood to fees.

MARRIAGE.--There are many reminiscences of "archaic marriage customs

in Saxo." The capture marriage has left traces in the guarded king's

daughters, the challenging of kings to fight or hand over their

daughters, in the promises to give a daughter or sister as a reward to

a hero who shall accomplish some feat. The existence of polygamy is

attested, and it went on till the days of Charles the Great and Harold

Fairhair in singular instances, in the case of great kings, and finally

disappeared before the strict ecclesiastic regulations.

But there are evidences also of later customs, such as "marriage by

purchase", already looked on as archaic in Saxo's day; and the free

women in Denmark had clearly long had a veto or refusal of a husband for

some time back, and sometimes even free choice. "Go-betweens" negotiate

marriages.

Betrothal was of course the usage. For the groom to defile an espoused

woman is a foul reproach. Gifts made to father-in-law after bridal by

bridegroom seem to denote the old bride-price. Taking the bride home in

her car was an important ceremony, and a bride is taken to her future

husband's by her father. The wedding-feast, as in France in Rabelais'

time, was a noisy and drunken and tumultuous rejoicing, when

bone-throwing was in favor, with other rough sports and jokes. The three

days after the bridal and their observance in "sword-bed" are noticed

below.

A commoner or one of slave-blood could not pretend to wed a high-born

lady. A woman would sometimes require some proof of power or courage at

her suitor's hands; thus Gywritha, like the famous lady who weds Harold

Fairhair, required her husband Siwar to be over-king of the whole land.

But in most instances the father or brother betrothed the girl, and she

consented to their choice. Unwelcome suitors perish.

The prohibited degrees were, of course, different from those established

by the mediaeval church, and brother weds brother's widow in good

archaic fashion. Foster-sister and foster-brother may marry, as Saxo

notices carefully. The Wolsung incest is not noticed by Saxo. He only

knew, apparently, the North-German form of the Niflung story. But the

reproachfulness of incest is apparent.

Birth and beauty were looked for in a bride by Saxo's heroes, and

chastity was required. The modesty of maidens in old days is eulogised

by Saxo, and the penalty for its infraction was severe: sale abroad into

slavery to grind the quern in the mud of the yard. One of the tests of

virtue is noticed, "lac in ubere".

That favourite "motif", the "Patient Grizzle", occurs, rather, however,

in the Border ballad than the Petrarcan form.

"Good wives" die with their husbands as they have vowed, or of grief for

their loss, and are wholly devoted to their interests. Among "bad wives"

are those that wed their husband's slayer, run away from their husbands,

plot against their husbands' lives. The penalty for adultery is death to

both, at husband's option--disfigurement by cutting off the nose of

the guilty woman, an archaic practice widely spread. In one case the

adulterous lady is left the choice of her own death. Married women's

Homeric duties are shown.

There is a curious story, which may rest upon fact, and not be merely

typical, where a mother who had suffered wrong forced her daughter to

suffer the same wrong.

Captive women are reduced to degrading slavery as "harlots" in one case,

according to the eleventh century English practice of Gytha.

THE FAMILY AND BLOOD REVENGE.--This duty, one of the strongest links of

the family in archaic Teutonic society, has left deep traces in Saxo.

To slay those most close in blood, even by accident, is to incur the

guilt of parricide, or kin-killing, a bootless crime, which can only be

purged by religious ceremonies; and which involves exile, lest the gods'

wrath fall on the land, and brings the curse of childlessness on the

offender until he is forgiven.

BOOTLESS CRIMES.--As among the ancient Teutons, botes and were-gilds

satisfy the injured who seek redress at law rather than by the steel.

But there are certain bootless crimes, or rather sins, that imply

"sacratio", devotion to the gods, for the clearing of the community.

Such are treason, which is punishable by hanging; by drowning in sea.

Rebellion is still more harshly treated by death and forfeiture; the

rebels' heels are bored and thonged under the sinew, as Hector's feet

were, and they are then fastened by the thongs to wild bulls, hunted

by hounds, till they are dashed to pieces (for which there are classic

parallels), or their feet are fastened with thongs to horses driven

apart, so that they are torn asunder.

For "parricide", i.e., killing within near degrees, the criminal is hung

up, apparently by the heels, with a live wolf (he having acted as a wolf

which will slay its fellows). Cunning avoidance of the guilt by trick is

shown.

For "arson" the appropriate punishment is the fire.

For "incestuous adultery" of stepson with his stepmother, hanging is

awarded to the man. In the same case Swanwhite, the woman, is punished,

by treading to death with horses. A woman accomplice in adultery is

treated to what Homer calls a "stone coat." Incestuous adultery is a

foul slur.

For "witchcraft", the horror of heathens, hanging was the penalty.

"Private revenge" sometimes deliberately inflicts a cruel death for

atrocious wrong or insult, as when a king, enraged at the slaying of his

son and seduction of his daughter, has the offender hanged, an instance

famous in Nathan's story, so that Hagbard's hanging and hempen necklace

were proverbial.

For the slayer by a cruel death of their captive father, Ragnar's sons

act the blood-eagle on Ella, and salt his flesh. There is an undoubted

instance of this act of vengeance (the symbolic meaning of which is not

clear as yet) in the "Orkney Saga".

But the story of Daxo and of Ref's gild show that for such wrongs

were-gilds were sometimes exacted, and that they were considered highly

honourable to the exactor.

Among OFFENCES NOT BOOTLESS, and left to individual pursuit, are:--

"Highway robbery".--There are several stories of a type such as that of

Ingemund and Ioknl (see "Landnamaboc") told by Saxo of highwaymen; and

an incident of the kind that occurs in the Theseus story (the Bent-tree,

which sprung back and slew the wretch bound to it) is given. The

romantic trick of the mechanic bed, by which a steel-shod beam is

let fall on the sleeping traveller, also occurs. Slain highwaymen are

gibbeted as in Christian days.

"Assassination", as distinct from manslaughter in vengeance for a wrong,

is not very common. A hidden mail-coat foils a treacherous javelin-cast

(cf. the Story of Olaf the Stout and the Blind King, Hrorec); murderers

lurk spear-armed at the threshold, sides, as in the Icelandic Sagas; a

queen hides a spear-head in her gown, and murders her husband (cf.

Olaf Tryggvason's Life). Godfred was murdered by his servant (and

Ynglingatal).

"Burglary".--The crafty discovery of the robber of the treasury by

Hadding is a variant of the world-old Rhampsinitos tale, but less

elaborate, possibly abridged and cut down by Saxo, and reduced to a mere

moral example in favour of the goldenness of silence and the danger of

letting the tongue feed the gallows.

Among other disgraceful acts, that make the offender infamous, but do

not necessarily involve public action:--

"Manslaughter in Breach of Hospitality".--Probably any gross breach of

hospitality was disreputable and highly abhorred, but "guest-slaughter"

is especially mentioned. The ethical question as to whether a man should

slay his guest or forego his just vengeance was often a "probleme du

jour" in the archaic times to which these traditions witness. Ingeld

prefers his vengeance, but Thuriswend, in the Lay cited by Paul the

Deacon, chooses to protect his guest. Heremod slew his messmates in his

wrath, and went forth alone into exile. ("Beowulf's Lay".)

"Suicide".--This was more honourable than what Earl Siward of

Northumberland called a "cow-death." Hadding resolves to commit suicide

at his friend's death. Wermund resolves to commit suicide if his son be

slain (in hopelessness of being able to avenge him, cf. "Njal's Saga",

where the hero, a Christian, prefers to perish in his burning house than

live dishonoured, "for I am an old man and little fitted to avenge my

sons, but I will not live in shame"). Persons commit suicide by slaying

each other in time of famine; while in England (so Baeda tells) they

"decliffed" themselves in companies, and, as in the comic little

Icelandic tale Gautrec's birth, a Tarpeian death is noted as the

customary method of relieving folks from the hateful starvation

death. It is probable that the violent death relieved the ghost or

the survivors of some inconveniences which a "straw death" would have

brought about.

"Procedure by Wager of Battle".--This archaic process pervades Saxo's

whole narrative. It is the main incident of many of the sagas from

which he drew. It is one of the chief characteristics of early Teutonic

custom-law, and along with "Cormac's Saga", "Landnamaboc", and the

Walter Saga, our author has furnished us with most of the information we

have upon its principles and practice.

Steps in the process are the Challenge, the Acceptance and Settlement of

Conditions, the Engagement, the Treatment of the vanquished, the Reward

of the conqueror, and there are rules touching each of these, enough

almost to furnish a kind of "Galway code".

A challenge could not, either to war or wager of battle, be refused with

honor, though a superior was not bound to fight an inferior in rank. An

ally might accept for his principal, or a father for a son, but it was

not honourable for a man unless helpless to send a champion instead of

himself.

Men were bound to fight one to one, and one man might decline to fight

two at once. Great champions sometimes fought against odds.

The challenged man chose the place of battle, and possibly fixed the

time. This was usually an island in the river.

The regular weapons were swords and shields for men of gentle blood.

They fought by alternate separate strokes; the senior had the first

blow. The fight must go on face to face without change of place; for the

ground was marked out for the combatants, as in our prize ring, though

one can hardly help fancying that the fighting ground so carefully

described in "Cormac's Saga", ch. 10, may have been Saxo's authority.

The combatants change places accidentally in the struggle in one story.

The combat might last, like Cuchullin's with Ferdia, several days; a

nine days' fight occurs; but usually a few blows settled the matter.

Endurance was important, and we are told of a hero keeping himself in

constant training by walking in a mail coat.

The conqueror ought not to slay his man if he were a stripling, or

maimed, and had better take his were-gild for his life, the holmslausn

or ransom of "Cormac's Saga" (three marks in Iceland); but this was

a mere concession to natural pity, and he might without loss of honor

finish his man, and cut off his head, though it was proper, if the slain

adversary has been a man of honor, to bury him afterward.

The stakes are sometimes a kingdom or a kingdom's tribute, often a lady,

or the combatants fought for "love" or the point of honor. Giants

and noted champions challenge kings for their daughters (as in the

fictitious parts of the Icelandic family sagas) in true archaic

fashion, and in true archaic fashion the prince rescues the lady from a

disgusting and evil fate by his prowess.

The champion's fee or reward when he was fighting for his principal and

came off successful was heavy--many lands and sixty slaves. Bracelets

are given him; a wound is compensated for at ten gold pieces; a fee for

killing a king is 120 of the same.

Of the incidents of the combat, beside fair sleight of fence, there is

the continual occurrence of the sword-blunting spell, often cast by the

eye of the sinister champion, and foiled by the good hero, sometimes

by covering his blade with thin skin, sometimes by changing the blade,

sometimes by using a mace or club.

The strength of this tradition sufficiently explains the necessity of

the great oath against magic taken by both parties in a wager of battle

in Christian England.

The chief combats mentioned by Saxo are:--

Sciold v. Attila. Sciold v. Scate, for the hand of Alfhild. Gram v.

Swarin and eight more, for the crown of the Swedes. Hadding v. Toste, by

challenge. Frode v. Hunding, on challenge. Frode v. Hacon, on challenge.

Helge v. Hunding, by challenge at Stad. Agnar v. Bearce, by challenge.

Wizard v. Danish champions, for truage of the Slavs. Wizard v. Ubbe,

for truage of the Slavs. Coll v. Horwendill, on challenge. Athisl v.

Frowine, meeting in battle. Athisl v. Ket and Wig, on challenge. Uffe

v. Prince of Saxony and Champion, by challenge. Frode v. Froger, on

challenge. Eric v. Grep's brethren, on challenge, twelve a side. Eric

v. Alrec, by challenge. Hedin v. Hogni, the mythic everlasting battle.

Arngrim v. Scalc, by challenge. Arngrim v. Egtheow, for truage of

Permland. Arrow-Odd and Hialmar v. twelve sons of Arngrim Samsey fight.

Ane Bow-swayer v. Beorn, by challenge. Starkad v. Wisin, by challenge.

Starkad v. Tanlie, by challenge. Starkad v. Wasce--Wilzce, by challenge.

Starkad v. Hame, by challenge. Starkad v. Angantheow and eight of

his brethren, on challenge. Halfdan v. Hardbone and six champions,

on challenge. Halfdan v. Egtheow, by challenge. Halfdan v. Grim, on

challenge. Halfdan v. Ebbe, on challenge, by moonlight. Halfdan v.

Twelve champions, on challenge. Halfdan v. Hildeger, on challenge. Ole

v. Skate and Hiale, on challenge. Homod and Thole v. Beorn and Thore, by

challenge. Ref. v. Gaut, on challenge. Ragnar and three sons v. Starcad

of Sweden and seven sons, on challenge.

CIVIL PROCEDURE.--"Oaths" are an important art of early procedure, and

noticed by Saxo; one calling the gods to witness and therefor, it is

understood, to avenge perjury if he spake not truth.

"Testification", or calling witnesses to prove the steps of a legal

action, was known, "Glum's Saga" and "Landnamaboc", and when a manslayer

proceeded (in order to clear himself of murder) to announce the

manslaughter as his act, he brings the dead man's head as his proof,

exactly as the hero in the folk-tales brings the dragon's head or tongue

as his voucher.

A "will" is spoken of. This seems to be the solemn declaration of

a childless man to his kinsfolk, recommending some person as his

successor. Nothing more was possible before written wills were

introduced by the Christian clergy after the Roman fashion.

STATUTE LAWS.

"Lawgivers".--The realm of Custom had already long been curtailed by the

conquests of Law when Saxo wrote, and some epochs of the invasion were

well remembered, such as Canute's laws. But the beginnings were dim, and

there were simply traditions of good and bad lawyers of the past; such

were "Sciold" first of all the arch-king, "Frode" the model lawgiver,

"Helge" the tyrant, "Ragnar" the shrewd conqueror.

"Sciold", the patriarch, is made by tradition to fulfil, by abolishing

evil customs and making good laws, the ideal of the Saxon and Frankish

Coronation oath formula (which may well go back with its two first

clauses to heathen days). His fame is as widely spread. However, the

only law Saxo gives to him has a story to it that he does not plainly

tell. Sciold had a freedman who repaid his master's manumission of him

by the ingratitude of attempting his life. Sciold thereupon decrees

the unlawfulness of manumissions, or (as Saxo puts it), revoked all

manumissions, thus ordaining perpetual slavery on all that were or might

become slaves. The heathen lack of pity noticed in Alfred's preface

to "Gregory's Handbook" is illustrated here by contrast with the

philosophic humanity of the Civil Law, and the sympathy of the mediaeval

Church.

But FRODE (known also to the compiler of "Beowulf's Lay", 2025) had, in

the Dane's eyes, almost eclipsed Sciold as conqueror and lawgiver. His

name Frode almost looks as if his epithet Sapiens had become his popular

appellation, and it befits him well. Of him were told many stories, and

notably the one related of our Edwin by Bede (and as it has been told by

many men of many rulers since Bede wrote, and before). Frode was able to

hang up an arm-ring of gold in three parts of his kingdom that no thief

for many years dared touch. How this incident (according to our version

preserved by Saxo), brought the just king to his end is an archaic and

interesting story. Was this ring the Brosinga men?

Saxo has even recorded the Laws of Frode in four separate bits, which we

give as A, B, C, D.

A. is mainly a civil and military code of archaic kind:

(a) The division of spoil shall be--gold to captains, silver to

privates, arms to champions, ships to be shared by all. Cf. Jomswickinga

S. on the division of spoil by the law of the pirate community of Jom.

(b) No house stuff to be locked; if a man used a lock he must pay a gold

mark.

(c) He who spares a thief must bear his punishment.

(d) The coward in battle is to forfeit all rights (cf. "Beowulf", 2885).

(e) Women to have free choice (or, at least, veto) in taking husbands.

(f) A free woman that weds a slave loses rank and freedom (cf. Roman

Law).

(g) A man must marry a girl he has seduced.

(h) An adulterer to be mutilated at pleasure of injured husband.

(i) Where Dane robbed Dane, the thief to pay double and peace-breach.

(k) Receivers of stolen goods suffer forfeiture and flogging at most.

(l) Deserter bearing shield against his countrymen to lose life and

property.

(m) Contempt of fyrd-summons or call to military service involves

outlawry and exile.

(n) Bravery in battle to bring about increase in rank (cf. the old

English "Ranks of Men").

(o) No suit to lie on promise and pledge; fine of a gold lb. for asking

pledge.

(p) Wager of battle is to be the universal mode of proof.

(q) If an alien kill a Dane two aliens must suffer. (This is practically

the same principle as appears in the half weregild of the Welsh in West

Saxon Law.)

B. An illustration of the more capricious of the old enactments and the

jealousy of antique kings.

(a) Loss of gifts sent to the king involves the official responsible; he

shall be hanged. (This is introduced as illustration of the cleverness

of Eric and the folly of Coll.)

C. Saxo associates another set of enactments with the completion of a

successful campaign of conquest over the Ruthenians, and shows Frode

chiefly as a wise and civilising statesman, making conquest mean

progress.

(a) Every free householder that fell in war was to be set in his barrow

with horse and arms (cf. "Vatzdaela Saga", ch. 2).

The body-snatcher was to be punished by death and the lack of sepulture.

Earl or king to be burned in his own ship.

Ten sailors may be burnt on one ship.

(b) Ruthenians to have the same law of war as Danes.

(c) Ruthenians must adopt Danish sale-marriage. (This involves

the abolition of the Baltic custom of capture-marriage. That

capture-marriage was a bar to social progress appears in the legislation

of Richard II, directed against the custom as carried out on the borders

of the Palatine county of Chester, while cases such as the famous one of

Rob Roy's sons speak to its late continuance in Scotland. In Ireland it

survived in a stray instance or two into this century, and songs like

"William Riley" attest the sympathy of the peasant with the eloping

couple.)

(d) A veteran, one of the Doughty, must be such a man as will attack one

foe, will stand two, face three without withdrawing more than a little,

and be content to retire only before four. (One of the traditional

folk-sayings respecting the picked men, the Doughty or Old Guard, as

distinguished from the Youth or Young Guard, the new-comers in the

king's Company of House-carles. In Harald Hardrede's Life the Norwegians

dread those English house-carles, "each of whom is a match for four,"

who formed the famous guard that won Stamford Bridge and fell about

their lord, a sadly shrunken band, at Senlake.)

(f) The house-carles to have winter-pay. The house-carle three pieces

of silver, a hired soldier two pieces, a soldier who had finished his

service one piece.

(The treatment of the house-carles gave Harald Harefoot a reputation

long remembered for generosity, and several old Northern kings have

won their nicknames by their good or ill feeding and rewarding their

comitatus.)

D. Again a civil code, dealing chiefly with the rights of travellers.

(a) Seafarers may use what gear they find (the "remis" of the text may

include boat or tackle).

(b) No house is to be locked, nor coffer, but all thefts to be

compensated threefold. (This, like A, b, which it resembles, seems a

popular tradition intended to show the absolute security of Frode's

reign of seven or three hundred years. It is probably a gloss wrongly

repeated.)

(c) A traveller may claim a single supper; if he take more he is a

thief (the mark of a prae-tabernal era when hospitality was waxing cold

through misuse).

(d) Thief and accomplices are to be punished alike, being hung up by

a line through the sinews and a wolf fastened beside. (This, which

contradicts A, i, k, and allots to theft the punishment proper for

parricide, seems a mere distorted tradition.)

But beside just Frode, tradition spoke of the unjust Kinge HELGE, whose

laws represent ill-judged harshness. They were made for conquered races,

(a) the Saxons and (b) the Swedes.

(a) Noble and freedmen to have the same were-gild (the lower, of course,

the intent being to degrade all the conquered to one level, and to allow

only the lowest were-gild of a freedman, fifty pieces, probably, in the

tradition).

(b) No remedy for wrong done to a Swede by a Dane to be legally

recoverable. (This is the traditional interpretation of the conqueror's

haughty dealing; we may compare it with the Middle-English legends of

the pride of the Dane towards the conquered English. The Tradition sums

up the position in such concrete forms as this Law of Helge's.)

Two statutes of RAGNAR are mentioned:--

(a) That any householder should give up to his service in war the worst

of his children, or the laziest of his slaves (a curious tradition, and

used by Saxo as an opportunity for patriotic exaltation).

(b) That all suits shall be absolutely referred to the judgment of

twelve chosen elders (Lodbroc here appearing in the strange character of

originator of trial by jury).

"Tributes".--Akin to laws are the tributes decreed and imposed by kings

and conquerors of old. Tribute infers subjection in archaic law. The

poll-tax in the fourteenth century in England was unpopular, because of

its seeming to degrade Englishmen to the level of Frenchmen, who paid

tribute like vanquished men to their absolute lord, as well as for other

reasons connected with the collection of the tax.

The old fur tax (mentioned in "Egil's Saga") is here ascribed to FRODE,

who makes the Finns pay him, every three years, a car full or sledge

full of skins for every ten heads; and extorts one skin per head from

the Perms. It is Frode, too (though Saxo has carved a number of Frodes

out of one or two kings of gigantic personality), that made the Saxons

pay a poll-tax, a piece of money per head, using, like William the

Conqueror, his extraordinary revenue to reward his soldiers, whom he

first regaled with double pay. But on the conquered folks rebelling,

he marked their reduction by a tax of a piece of money on every limb a

cubit long, a "limb-geld" still more hateful than the "neb-geld."

HOTHERUS (Hodr) had set a tribute on the Kurlanders and Swedes, and

HROLF laid a tribute on the conquered Swedes.

GODEFRIDUS-GOTRIC is credited with a third Saxon tribute, a heriot of

100 snow-white horses payable to each Danish king at his succession, and

by each Saxon chief on his accession: a statement that, recalling sacred

snow-white horses kept in North Germany of yore makes one wish for

fuller information. But Godefridus also exacted from the Swedes the

"Ref-gild", or Fox-money; for the slaying of his henchman Ref, twelve

pieces of gold from each man of rank, one from every commoner. And his

Friesland tribute is stranger still, nor is it easy to understand from

Saxo's account. There was a long hall built, 240 feet, and divided up

into twelve "chases" of 20 feet each (probably square). There was a

shield set up at one end, and the taxpayers hurled their money at it; if

it struck so as to sound, it was good; if not, it was forfeit, but not

reckoned in the receipt. This (a popular version, it may be, of some

early system of treasury test) was abolished, so the story goes, by

Charles the Great.

RAGNAR'S exaction from Daxo, his son's slayer, was a yearly tribute

brought by himself and twelve of his elders barefoot, resembling in part

such submissions as occur in the Angevin family history, the case of the

Calais burgesses, and of such criminals as the Corporation of Oxford,

whose penance was only finally renounced by the local patriots in our

own day.

WAR.

"Weapons".--The sword is the weapon par excellence in Saxo's narrative,

and he names several by name, famous old blades like our royal Curtana,

which some believed was once Tristrem's, and that sword of Carlus, whose

fortunes are recorded in Irish annals. Such are "Snyrtir", Bearce's

sword; "Hothing", Agnar's blade; "Lauf", or "Leaf", Bearce's sword;

"Screp", Wermund's sword, long buried and much rust-eaten, but sharp and

trusty, and known by its whistle; Miming's sword ("Mistletoe"), which

slew Balder. Wainhead's curved blade seems to be a halbert; "Lyusing"

and "Hwiting", Ragnald of Norway's swords; "Logthe", the sword of Ole

Siward's son.

The "war-club" occurs pretty frequently. But it is usually introduced as

a special weapon of a special hero, who fashions a gold-headed club

to slay one that steel cannot touch, or who tears up a tree, like the

Spanish knight in the ballad, or who uses a club to counteract spells

that blunt steel. The bat-shapen archaic rudder of a ship is used as a

club in the story of the Sons of Arngrim.

The "spear" plays no particular part in Saxo: even Woden's spear Gungne

is not prominent.

"Bows and arrows" are not often spoken of, but archer heroes, such as

Toki, Ane Bow-swayer, and Orwar-Odd, are known. Slings and stones are

used.

The shield, of all defensive armour, is far the most prominent. They

were often painted with devices, such as Hamlet's shield, Hildiger's

Swedish shield. Dr. Vigfusson has shown the importance of these painted

shields in the poetic history of the Scandinavians.

A red shield is a signal of peace. Shields are set round ramparts on

land as round ships at sea.

"Mail-coats" are worn. Frode has one charmed against steel. Hother has

another; a mail-coat of proof is mentioned and their iron meshes are

spoken of.

"Helmets" are used, but not so carefully described as in "Beowulf's

Lay"; crested helmets and a gilded helmet occur in Bearca-mal and in

another poem.

"Banners" serve as rallying points in the battle and on the march. The

Huns' banners are spoken of in the classic passage for the description

of a huge host invading a country. Bearcamal talks of golden banners.

"Horns" (1) were blown pp at the beginning of the engagement and for

signalling. The gathering of the host was made by delivery of a wooden

arrow painted to look like iron.

"Tactics".--The hand-to-hand fight of the wager of battle with sword

and shield, and the fighting in ranks and the wedge-column at close

quarters, show that the close infantry combat was the main event of the

battle. The preliminary hurling of stones, and shooting of arrows,

and slinging of pebbles, were harassing and annoying, but seldom

sufficiently important to affect the result of the main engagement.

Men ride to battle, but fight on foot; occasionally an aged king is

car-borne to the fray, and once the car, whether by Saxo's adorning

hand, or by tradition, is scythe-armed.

The gathered host is numbered, once, where, as with Xerxes, counting was

too difficult, by making each man as he passed put a pebble in a pile

(which piles survive to mark the huge size of Frode's army). This is,

of course, a folktale, explaining the pebble-hills and illustrating the

belief in Frode's power; but armies were mustered by such expedients of

old. Burton tells of an African army each man of whom presented an egg,

as a token of his presence and a means of taking the number of the host.

We hear of men marching in light order without even scabbards, and

getting over the ice in socks.

The war equipment and habits of the Irish, light armoured, clipped at

back of head, hurling the javelin backwards in their feigned flight; of

the Slavs, small blue targets and long swords; of the Finns, with their

darts and skees, are given.

Watches are kept, and it is noted that "uht", the early watch

after midnight, is the worst to be attacked in (the duke's

two-o'clock-in-the-morning courage being needed, and the darkness and

cold helping the enemy).

Spies were, of course, slain if discovered. But we have instances of

kings and heroes getting into foeman's camps in disguise (cf. stories of

Alfred and Anlaf).

The order of battle of Bravalla fight is given, and the ideal array of a

host. To Woden is ascribed the device of the boar's head, hamalt fylking

(the swine-head array of Manu's Indian kings), the terrible column with

wedge head which could cleave the stoutest line.

The host of Ring has men from Wener, Wermland, Gotaelf, Thotn, Wick,

Thelemark, Throndham, Sogn, Firths, Fialer, Iceland; Sweden, Gislamark,

Sigtun, Upsala, Pannonia.

The host of Harold had men from Iceland, the Danish provinces, Frisia,

Lifland; Slavs, and men from Jom, Aland, and Sleswick.

The battle of Bravalla is said to have been won by the Gotland archers

and the men of Throndham, and the Dales. The death of Harald by

treachery completed the defeat, which began when Ubbe fell (after he had

broken the enemy's van) riddled with arrows.

The defeated, unless they could fly, got little quarter. One-fifth only

of the population of a province are said to have survived an invasion.

After sea-battles (always necessarily more deadly) the corpses choke the

harbours. Seventy sea-kings are swept away in one sea-fight. Heads seem

to have been taken in some cases, but not as a regular Teutonic usage,

and the practice, from its being attributed to ghosts and aliens,

must have already been considered savage by Saxo, and probably by his

informants and authorities.

Prisoners were slaves; they might be killed, put to cruel death,

outraged, used as slaves, but the feeling in favour of mercy was

growing, and the cruelty of Eormenric, who used tortures to his

prisoners, of Rothe, who stripped his captives, and of Fro, who sent

captive ladies to a brothel in insult, is regarded with dislike.

Wounds were looked on as honourable, but they must be in front or

honourably got. A man who was shot through the buttocks, or wounded in

the back, was laughed at and disgraced. We hear of a mother helping her

wounded son out of battle.

That much of human interest centered round war is evident by the mass

of tradition that surrounds the subject in Saxo, both in its public and

private aspects. Quaint is the analysis of the four kinds of warriors:

(a) The Veterans, or Doughty, who kill foes and spare flyers; (b) the

Young men who kill foes and flyers too; (c) the well-to-do, landed, and

propertied men of the main levy, who neither fight for fear nor fly for

shame; (d) the worthless, last to fight and first to fly; and curious

are the remarks about married and unmarried troops, a matter which Chaka

pondered over in later days. Homeric speeches precede the fight.

"Stratagems of War" greatly interested Saxo (probably because Valerius

Maximus, one of his most esteemed models, was much occupied with such

matters), so that he diligently records the military traditions of the

notably skillful expedients of famous commanders of old.

There is the device for taking a town by means of the "pretended death"

of the besieging general, a device ascribed to Hastings and many more

commanders (see Steenstrup Normannerne); the plan of "firing" a besieged

town by fire-bearing birds, ascribed here to Fridlev, in the case of

Dublin to Hadding against Duna (where it was foiled by all tame birds

being chased out of the place).

There is the "Birnam Wood" stratagem, by which men advanced behind a

screen of boughs, which is even used for the concealment of ships, and

the curious legend (occurring in Irish tradition also, and recalling

Capt. B. Hall's "quaker gun" story) by which a commander bluffs off his

enemy by binding his dead to stakes in rows, as if they were living men.

Less easy to understand are the "brazen horses" or "machines" driven

into the close lines of the enemy to crush and open them, an invention

of Gewar. The use of hooked weapons to pull down the foes' shields and

helmets was also taught to Hother by Gewar.

The use of black tents to conceal encampment; the defence of a pass by

hurling rocks from the heights; the bridge of boats across the Elbe;

and the employment of spies, and the bold venture, ascribed in our

chronicles to Alfred and Anlaf, of visiting in disguise the enemy's

camp, is here attributed to Frode, who even assumed women's clothes for

the purpose.

Frode is throughout the typical general, as he is the typical statesman

and law-giver of archaic Denmark.

There are certain heathen usages connected with war, as the hurling of

a javelin or shooting of an arrow over the enemy's ranks as a "sacratio"

to Woden of the foe at the beginning of a battle. This is recorded in

the older vernacular authorities also, in exact accordance with the

Homeric usage, "Odyssey" xxiv, 516-595.

The dedication of part of the spoils to the god who gave good omens for

the war is told of the heathen Baltic peoples; but though, as Sidonius

records, it had once prevailed among the Saxons, and, as other witnesses

add, among the Scandinavian people, the tradition is not clearly

preserved by Saxo.

"Sea and Sea Warfare."--As might be expected, there is much mention of

Wicking adventure and of maritime warfare in Saxo.

Saxo tells of Asmund's huge ship (Gnod), built high that he might shoot

down on the enemy's craft; he speaks of a ship (such as Godwin gave as

a gift to the king his master), and the monk of St. Bertin and the

court-poets have lovingly described a ship with gold-broidered sails,

gilt masts, and red-dyed rigging. One of his ships has, like the ships

in the Chansons de Geste, a carbuncle for a lantern at the masthead.

Hedin signals to Frode by a shield at the masthead. A red shield was a

peace signal, as noted above. The practice of "strand-hewing", a great

feature in Wicking-life (which, so far as the victualling of raw meat

by the fishing fleets, and its use raw, as Mr. P. H. Emerson informs

me, still survives), is spoken of. There was great fear of monsters

attacking them, a fear probably justified by such occasional attacks of

angry whales as Melville (founding his narrative on repeated facts) has

immortalised. The whales, like Moby Dick, were uncanny, and inspired by

troll-women or witches (cf. "Frithiof Saga" and the older "Lay of

Atle and Rimegerd"). The clever sailing of Hadding, by which he eludes

pursuit, is tantalising, for one gathers that, Saxo knows the details

that he for some reason omits. Big fleets of 150 and a monster armada of

3,000 vessels are recorded.

The ships were moved by oars and sails; they had rudders, no doubt such

as the Gokstad ship, for the hero Arrow-Odd used a rudder as a weapon.

"Champions".--Professed fighting men were often kept by kings and

earls about their court as useful in feud and fray. Harald Fairhair's

champions are admirably described in the contemporary Raven Song by

Hornclofe--

"Wolf-coats they call them that in battle

Bellow into bloody shields.

They wear wolves' hides when they come into the fight,

And clash their weapons together."

and Saxo's sources adhere closely to this pattern.

These "bear-sarks", or wolf-coats of Harald give rise to an O. N. term,

"bear-sarks' way", to describe the frenzy of fight and fury which such

champions indulged in, barking and howling, and biting their shield-rims

(like the ferocious "rook" in the narwhale ivory chessmen in the British

Museum) till a kind of state was produced akin to that of the Malay when

he has worked himself up to "run-a-muck." There seems to have been in

the 10th century a number of such fellows about unemployed, who

became nuisances to their neighbours by reason of their bullying and

highhandedness. Stories are told in the Icelandic sagas of the way such

persons were entrapped and put to death by the chiefs they served when

they became too troublesome. A favourite (and fictitious) episode in

an "edited" Icelandic saga is for the hero to rescue a lady promised to

such a champion (who has bullied her father into consent) by slaying the

ruffian. It is the same "motif" as Guy of Warwick and the Saracen lady,

and one of the regular Giant and Knight stories.

Beside men-warriors there were "women-warriors" in the North, as Saxo

explains. He describes shield-maidens, as Alfhild, Sela, Rusila

(the Ingean Ruadh, or Red Maid of the Irish Annals, as Steenstrup so

ingeniously conjectures); and the three she-captains, Wigbiorg, who fell

on the field, Hetha, who was made queen of Zealand, and Wisna, whose

hand Starcad cut off, all three fighting manfully at Bravalla fight.

SOCIAL LIFE AND MANNERS.

"Feasts".--The hall-dinner was an important feature in the old Teutonic

court-life. Many a fine scene in a saga takes place in the hall while

the king and his men are sitting over their ale. The hall decked with

hangings, with its fires, lights, plate and provisions, appears in Saxo

just as in the Eddic Lays, especially Rigsmal, and the Lives of the

Norwegian Kings and Orkney Earls.

The order of seats is a great point of archaic manners. Behaviour at

table was a matter of careful observance. The service, especially that

of the cup-bearer, was minutely regulated by etiquette. An honoured

guest was welcomed by the host rising to receive him and giving him a

seat near himself, but less distinguished visitors were often victims to

the rough horseplay of the baser sort, and of the wanton young gentleman

at court. The food was simple, boiled beef and pork, and mutton without

sauce, ale served in horns from the butt. Roast meat, game, sauces,

mead, and flagons set on the table, are looked on by Starcad as foreign

luxuries, and Germany was credited with luxurious cookery.

"Mimes and jugglers", who went through the country or were attached to

the lord's court to amuse the company, were a despised race because of

their ribaldry, obscenity, cowardice, and unabashed self-debasement;

and their newfangled dances and piping were loathsome to the old

court-poets, who accepted the harp alone as an instrument of music.

The story that once a king went to war with his jugglers and they ran

away, would represent the point of view of the old house-carle, who

was neglected, though "a first-class fighting man", for these debauched

foreign buffoons.

SUPERNATURAL BEINGS.

GODS AND GODDESSES.--The gods spring, according to Saxo's belief, from

a race of sorcerers, some of whom rose to pre-eminence and expelled and

crushed the rest, ending the "wizard-age", as the wizards had ended the

monster or "giant-age". That they were identic with the classic gods he

is inclined to believe, but his difficulty is that in the week-days we

have Jove : Thor; Mercury : Woden; whereas it is perfectly well known

that Mercury is Jove's son, and also that Woden is the father of Thor--a

comic "embarras". That the persians the heathens worshipped as gods

existed, and that they were men and women false and powerful, Saxo

plainly believes. He has not Snorre's appreciation of the humorous side

of the mythology. He is ironic and scornful, but without the kindly,

naive fun of the Icelander.

The most active god, the Dane's chief god (as Frey is the Swede's god,

and patriarch), is "Woden". He appears in heroic life as patron of great

heroes and kings. Cf. "Hyndla-Lay", where it is said of Woden:--

"Let us pray the Father of Hosts to be gracious to us!

He granteth and giveth gold to his servants,

He gave Heremod a helm and mail-coat,

And Sigmund a sword to take.

He giveth victory to his sons, to his followers wealth,

Ready speech to his children and wisdom to men.

Fair wind to captains, and song to poets;

He giveth luck in love to many a hero."

He appears under various disguises and names, but usually as a one-eyed

old man, cowled and hooded; sometimes with another, bald and ragged, as

before the battle Hadding won; once as "Hroptr", a huge man skilled in

leechcraft, to Ragnar's son Sigfrid.

Often he is a helper in battle or doomer of feymen. As "Lysir", a rover

of the sea, he helps Hadding. As veteran slinger and archer he helps his

favourite Hadding; as charioteer, "Brune", he drives Harald to his death

in battle. He teaches Hadding how to array his troops. As "Yggr" the

prophet he advises the hero and the gods. As "Wecha" (Waer) the leech he

woos Wrinda. He invented the wedge array. He can grant charmed lives to

his favourites against steel. He prophesies their victories and death.

He snatches up one of his disciples, sets him on his magic horse that

rides over seas in the air, as in Skida-runa the god takes the beggar

over the North Sea. His image (like that of Frey in the Swedish story

of Ogmund dytt and Gunnar helming, "Flatey book", i, 335) could speak by

magic power.

Of his life and career Saxo gives several episodes.

Woden himself dwelt at Upsala and Byzantium (Asgard); and the northern

kings sent him a golden image ring-bedecked, which he made to speak

oracles. His wife Frigga stole the bracelets and played him false with a

servant, who advised her to destroy and rob the image.

When Woden was away (hiding the disgrace brought on him by Frigga his

wife), an imposter, Mid Odin, possibly Loke in disguise, usurped his

place at Upsala, instituted special drink-offerings, fled to Finland on

Woden's return, and was slain by the Fins and laid in barrow. But

the barrow smote all that approached it with death, till the body was

unearthed, beheaded, and impaled, a well-known process for stopping the

haunting of an obnoxious or dangerous ghost.

Woden had a son Balder, rival of Hother for the love of Nanna, daughter

of King Gewar. Woden and Thor his son fought for him against Hother,

but in vain, for Hother won the laity and put Balder to shameful flight;

however, Balder, half-frenzied by his dreams of Nanna, in turn drove him

into exile (winning the lady); finally Hother, befriended hy luck and

the Wood Maidens, to whom he owed his early successes and his magic

coat, belt, and girdle (there is obvious confusion here in the text), at

last met Balder and stabbed him in the side. Of this wound Balder died

in three days, as was foretold by the awful dream in which Proserpina

(Hela) appeared to him. Balder's grand burial, his barrow, and the magic

flood which burst from it when one Harald tried to break into it, and

terrified the robbers, are described.

The death of Balder led Woden to seek revenge. Hrossthiof the wizard,

whom he consulted, told him he must beget a son by "Wrinda" (Rinda,

daughter of the King of the Ruthenians), who should avenge his

half-brother.

Woden's wooing is the best part of this story, half spoilt, however,

by euhemeristic tone and lack of epic dignity. He woos as a victorious

warrior, and receives a cuff; as a generous goldsmith, and gets a

buffet; as a handsome soldier, earning a heavy knock-down blow; but in

the garb of a women as Wecha (Wakr), skilled in leechcraft, he won his

way by trickery; and ("Wale") "Bous" was born, who, after some years,

slew Hother in battle, and died himself of his wounds. Bous' barrow

in Bohusland, Balder's haven, Balder's well, are named as local

attestations of the legend, which is in a late form, as it seems.

The story of Woden's being banished for misbehaviour, and especially

for sorcery and for having worn woman's attire to trick Wrinda, his

replacement by "Wuldor" ("Oller"), a high priest who assumed Woden's

name and flourished for ten years, but was ultimately expelled by the

returning Woden, and killed by the Danes in Sweden, is in the same

style. But Wuldor's bone vessel is an old bit of genuine tradition

mangled. It would cross the sea as well as a ship could, by virtue of

certain spells marked on it.

Of "Frey", who appears as "satrapa" of the gods at Upsala, and as the

originator of human sacrifice, and as appeased by black victims, at a

sacrifice called Froblod (Freys-blot) instituted by Hadding, who began

it as an atonement for having slain a sea-monster, a deed for which he

had incurred a curse. The priapic and generative influences of Frey are

only indicated by a curious tradition mentioned. It almost looks as

if there had once been such an institution at Upsala as adorned the

Phoenician temples, under Frey's patronage and for a symbolic means of

worship.

"Thunder", or "Thor", is Woden's son, strongest of gods or men, patron

of Starcad, whom he turned, by pulling off four arms, from a monster to

a man.

He fights by Woden's side and Balder's against Hother, by whose magic

wand his club (hammer) was lopped off part of its shaft, a wholly

different and, a much later version than the one Snorre gives in the

prose Edda. Saxo knows of Thor's journey to the haunt of giant Garfred

(Geirrod) and his three daughters, and of the hurling of the iron

"bloom", and of the crushing of the giantesses, though he does not seem

to have known of the river-feats of either the ladies or Thor, if we may

judge (never a safe thing wholly) by his silence.

Whether "Tew" is meant by the Mars of the Song of the Voice is not

evident. Saxo may only be imitating the repeated catch-word "war" of the

original.

"Loke" appears as Utgard-Loke, Loke of the skirts of the World, as

it were; is treated as a venomous giant bound in agony under a

serpent-haunted cavern (no mention is made of "Sigyn" or her pious

ministry).

"Hela" seems to be meant by Saxo's Proserpina.

"Nanna" is the daughter of Gewar, and Balder sees her bathing and falls

in love with her, as madly as Frey with Gertha in Skirnismal.

"Freya", the mistress of Od, the patroness of Othere the homely, the

sister of Frey-Frode, and daughter of Niord-Fridlaf, appears as Gunwara

Eric's love and Syritha Ottar's love and the hair-clogged maiden, as Dr.

Rydberg has shown.

The gods can disguise their form, change their shape, are often met in

a mist, which shrouds them save from the right person; they appear

and disappear at will. For the rest they have the mental and physical

characteristics of the kings and queens they protect or persecute

so capriciously. They can be seen by making a magic sign and looking

through a witch's arm held akimbo. They are no good comates for men or

women, and to meddle with a goddess or nymph or giantess was to ensure

evil or death for a man. The god's loves were apparently not always so

fatal, though there seems to be some tradition to that effect. Most of

the god-sprung heroes are motherless or unborn (i.e., born like Macduff

by the Caesarean operation)--Sigfred, in the Eddic Lays for instance.

Besides the gods, possibly older than they are, and presumably mightier,

are the "Fates" (Norns), three Ladies who are met with together, who

fulfil the parts of the gift-fairies of our Sleeping Beauty tales, and

bestow endowments on the new-born child, as in the beautiful "Helge

Lay", a point of the story which survives in Ogier of the Chansons de

Geste, wherein Eadgar (Otkerus or Otgerus) gets what belonged to Holger

(Holge), the Helga of "Beowulf's Lay". The caprices of the Fates, where

one corrects or spoils the others' endowments, are seen in Saxo, when

beauty, bounty, and meanness are given together. They sometimes meet

heroes, as they met Helgi in the Eddic Lay (Helgi and Sigrun Lay),

and help or begift them; they prepare the magic broth for Balder, are

charmed with Hother's lute-playing, and bestow on him a belt of victory

and a girdle of splendour, and prophesy things to come.

The verse in Biarca-mal, where "Pluto weaves the dooms of the mighty and

fills Phlegethon with noble shapes," recalls Darrada-liod, and points to

Woden as death-doomer of the warrior.

"Giants".--These are stupid, mischievous, evil and cunning in Saxo's

eyes. Oldest of beings, with chaotic force and exuberance, monstrous in

extravagant vitality.

The giant nature of the older troll-kind is abhorrent to man and woman.

But a giantess is enamoured of a youth she had fostered, and giants

carry off king's daughters, and a three-bodied giant captures young

children.

Giants live in caves by the sea, where they keep their treasure. One

giant, Unfoot (Ofoti), is a shepherd, like Polyphemus, and has a famous

dog which passed into the charge of Biorn, and won a battle; a giantess

is keeping goats in the wilds. A giant's fury is so great that it takes

twelve champions to control him, when the rage is on him. The troll

(like our Puss-in-Boots Ogre) can take any shape.

Monstrous apparitions are mentioned, a giant hand (like that in one

story of Finn) searching for its prey among the inmates of a booth

in the wilds. But this Grendel-like arm is torn off by a giantess,

Hardgrip, daughter of Wainhead and niece possibly of Hafle.

The voice heard at night prophesying is that of some god or monster,

possibly Woden himself.

"Dwarves".--These Saxo calls Satyrs, and but rarely mentions. The dwarf

Miming, who lives in the desert, has a precious sword of sharpness

(Mistletoe?) that could even pierce skin-hard Balder, and a ring

(Draupnir) that multiplied itself for its possessor. He is trapped by

the hero and robbed of his treasures.

FUNERAL RITES AND MAN'S FUTURE STATE.

"Barrow-burials".--The obsequies of great men (such as the classic

funeral of "Beowulf's Lay", 3138-80) are much noticed by Saxo, and we

might expect that he knew such a poem (one similar to Ynglingatal, but

not it) which, like the Books of the Kings of Israel and Judah, recorded

the deaths and burials, as well as the pedigrees and deeds, of the

Danish kings.

The various stages of the "obsequy by fire" are noted; the byre

sometimes formed out of a ship; the "sati"; the devoted bower-maidens

choosing to die with their mistress, the dead man's beloved (cf. The

Eddic funerals of Balder, Sigfred, and Brunhild, in the Long "Brunhild's

Lay", Tregrof Gudrumar and the lost poem of Balder's death paraphrased

in the prose Edda); the last message given to the corpse on the pyre

(Woden's last words to Balder are famous); the riding round the pyre;

the eulogium; the piling of the barrow, which sometimes took whole days,

as the size of many existing grass mounds assure us; the funeral feast,

where an immense vat of ale or mead is drunk in honor of the dead; the

epitaph, like an ogham, set up on a stone over the barrow.

The inclusion of a live man with the dead in a barrow, with the live or

fresh-slain beasts (horse and bound) of the dead man, seems to point to

a time or district when burning was not used. Apparently, at one time,

judging from Frode's law, only chiefs and warriors were burnt.

Not to bury was, as in Hellas, an insult to the dead, reserved for the

bodies of hated foes. Conquerors sometimes show their magnanimity (like

Harald Godwineson) by offering to bury their dead foes.

The buried "barrow-ghost" was formidable; he could rise and slay and

eat, vampire-like, as in the tale of Asmund and Aswit. He must in such

case be mastered and prevented doing further harm by decapitation and

thigh-forking, or by staking and burning. So criminals' bodies were

often burnt to stop possible haunting.

Witches and wizards could raise corpses by spells to make them prophesy.

The dead also appeared in visions, usually foretelling death to the

person they visited.

OTHER WORLDS.--The "Land of Undeath" is spoken of as a place reached by

an exiled hero in his wanderings. We know it from Eric the traveller's

S., Helge Thoreson's S., Herrand and Bose S., Herwon S., Thorstan

Baearmagn S., and other Icelandic sources. But the voyage to the Other

Worlds are some of the most remarkable of the narratives Saxo has

preserved for us.

"Hadding's Voyage Underground".--(a) A woman bearing in her lap angelica

fresh and green, though it was deep winter, appears to the hero at

supper, raising her head beside the brazier. Hadding wishes to know

where such plants grow.

(b) She takes him with her, under cover of her mantle, underground.

(c) They pierce a mist, get on a road worn by long use, pass nobly-clad

men, and reach the sunny fields that bear the angelica:--

"Through griesly shadowes by a beaten path,

Into a garden goodly garnished."

--F.Q. ii. 7, 51.

(d) Next they cross, by a bridge, the "River of Blades", and see "two

armies fighting", ghosts of slain soldiers.

(e) Last they came to a high wall, which surrounds the land of Life, for

a cock the woman brought with her, whose neck she wrung and tossed over

this wall, came to life and crowed merrily.

Here the story breaks off. It is unfinished, we are only told that

Hadfling got back. Why he was taken to this under-world? Who took him?

What followed therefrom? Saxo does not tell. It is left to us to make

out.

That it is an archaic story of the kind in the Thomas of Ercildoune

and so many more fairy-tales, e.g., Kate Crack-a-Nuts, is certain. The

"River of Blades" and "The Fighting Warriors" are known from the Eddic

Poems. The angelica is like the green birk of that superb fragment, the

ballad of the Wife of Usher's Well--a little more frankly heathen, of

course--

"It fell about the Martinmas, when nights are long and mirk,

The carline wife's three sons cam hame, and their hats were

o' the birk.

It neither grew in syke nor dyke, nor yet in ony sheugh,

But at the gates o' Paradise that birk grew fair eneuch."

The mantel is that of Woden when he bears the hero over seas; the cock

is a bird of sorcery the world over; the black fowl is the proper gift

to the Underground powers--a heriot really, for did not the Culture god

steal all the useful beasts out of the underground world for men's use?

Dr. Rydberg has shown that the "Seven Sleepers" story is an old Northern

myth, alluded to here in its early pre-Christian form, and that with

this is mixed other incidents from voyages of Swipdag, the Teutonic

Odusseus.

"Thorkill's Second Voyage to Outgarth-Loke to get Knowledge".--(a)

Guthrum is troubled as to the immortality and fate of the soul, and the

reward of piety after death. To spite Thorkill, his enviers advised the

king to send him to consult Outgarth-Loke. He required of the king that

his enemies should be sent with him.

(b) In one well-stored and hide-defended ship they set out, reached

a sunless, starless land, without fuel; ate raw food and suffered. At

last, after many days, a fire was seen ashore. Thorkill, setting a jewel

at the mast-head to be able to regain his vessel easily, rows ashore to

get fire.

(c) In a filthy, snake-paved, stinking cavern he sees two horny-nebbed

giants, (2) making a fire. One of the giants offers to direct him to

Loke if he will say three true things in three phrases, and this done,

tells him to row four days and then he would reach a Dark and Grassless

Land. For three more true sayings he obtains fire, and gets back to his

vessel.

(d) With good wind they make Grassless Land, go ashore, find a huge,

rocky cavern, strike a flint to kindle a fire at the entrance as a

safeguard against demons, and a torch to light them as they explored the

cavern.

(e) First appears iron seats set amid crawling snakes.

(f) Next is sluggish water flowing over sand.

(g) Last a steep, sloping cavern is reached, in a chamber of which lay

Outgarth-Loke chained, huge and foul.

(h) Thorkill plucks a hair of his beard "as big as a cornel-wood spear."

The stench that arose was fearful; the demens and snakes fell upon the

invaders at once; only Thorkill and five of the crew, who had sheltered

themselves with hides against the virulent poison the demons and snakes

cast, which would take a head off at the neck if it fell upon it, got

back to their ship.

(i) By vow to the "God that made the world", and offerings, a good

voyage was made back, and Germany reached, where Thorkill became a

Christian. Only two of his men survived the effects of the poison and

stench, and he himself was scarred and spoilt in the face.

(k) When he reached the king, Guthrum would not listen to his tale,

because it was prophesied to him that he would die suddenly if he heard

it; nay, he even sent men to smite him as he lay in bed, but, by the

device of laying a log in his place, he escaped, and going to the king

as he sat at meat, reproached him for his treachery.

(l) Guthrum bade him tell his story, but died of horror at hearing his

god Loke foully spoken of, while the stench of the hair that Thorkill

produced, as Othere did his horn for a voucher of his speech, slew many

bystanders.

This is the regular myth of Loke, punished by the gods, lying bound with

his own soils' entrails on three sharp stones and a sword-blade, (this

latter an addition, when the myth was made stones were the only blades),

with snakes' venom dripping on to him, so that when it falls on him he

shakes with pain and makes earthquakes--a Titan myth in answer to the

question, "Why does the earth quake?" The vitriolic power of the poison

is excellently expressed in the story. The plucking of the hair as a

token is like the plucking of a horn off the giant or devil that occurs

in some folk-tale.

MAGIC AND FOLK-SCIENCE.

There is a belief in magic throughout Saxo's work, showing how fresh

heathendom still was in men's minds and memories. His explanations, when

he euhemerizes, are those of his day.

By means of spells all kinds of wonders could be effected, and the

powers of nature forced to work for the magician or his favourite.

"Skin-changing" (so common in "Landnamaboc") was as well known as in the

classic world of Lucian and Apuleius; and, where Frode perishes of the

attacks of a witch metamorphosed into a walrus.

"Mist" is induced by spells to cover and hide persons, as in Homer,

and "glamour" is produced by spells to dazzle foemen's sight. To cast

glamour and put confusion into a besieged place a witch is employed by

the beleaguerer, just as William the Conqueror used the witch in the

Fens against Hereward's fortalice. A soothsayer warns Charles the Great

of the coming of a Danish fleet to the Seine's mouth.

"Rain and bad weather" may be brought on, as in a battle against

the enemy, but in this, as in other instances, the spell may be

counteracted.

"Panic Terror" may be induced by the spell worked with a dead horse's

head set up on a pole facing the antagonist, but the spell may be met

and combatted by silence and a counter-curse.

"Magic help" may be got by calling on the friendly magician's name.

The magician has also the power of summoning to him anyone, however

unwilling, to appear.

Of spells and magic power to blunt steel there are several instances;

they may be counteracted (as in the Icelandic Sagas) by using the hilt,

or a club, or covering the blade with fine skin. In another case the

champion can only be overcome by one that will take up some of the dust

from under his feet. This is effected by the combatants shifting their

ground and exchanging places. In another case the foeman can only

be slain by gold, whereupon the hero has a gold-headed mace made and

batters the life out of him therewith. The brothers of Swanhild cannot

be cut by steel, for their mail was charmed by the witch Gudrun, but

Woden taught Eormenric, the Gothic king, how to overcome them with

stones (which apparently cannot, as archaic weapons, be charmed against

at all, resisting magic like wood and water and fire). Jordanis tells

the true history of Ermanaric, that great Gothic emperor whose rule

from the Dnieper to the Baltic and Rhine and Danube, and long reign of

prosperity, were broken by the coming of the Huns. With him vanished the

first great Teutonic empire.

Magic was powerful enough even to raise the dead, as was practised

by the Perms, who thus renewed their forces after a battle. In the

Everlasting battle the combatants were by some strange trick of fate

obliged to fulfil a perennial weird (like the unhappy Vanderdecken).

Spells to wake the dead were written on wood and put under the corpses'

tongue. Spells (written on bark) induce frenzy.

"Charms" would secure a man against claw or tooth.

"Love philtres" (as in the long "Lay of Gudrun) appear as everywhere in

savage and archaic society.

"Food", porridge mixed with the slaver of tortured snakes, gives magic

strength or endues the eater with eloquence and knowledge of beast and

bird speech (as Finn's broiled fish and Sigfred's broiled dragon-heart

do).

"Poison" like these hell-broths are part of the Witch or Obi

stock-in-trade, and Frode uses powdered gold as an antidote.

"Omens" are observed; tripping as one lands is lucky (as with our

William the Norman). Portents, such as a sudden reddening of the sea

where the hero is drowned, are noticed and interpreted.

"Dreams" (cf. Eddic Lays of Attila, and the Border ballads) are

prophetic (as nine-tenths of Europeans firmly believe still); thus the

visionary flame-spouting dragon is interpreted exactly as Hogne's and

Attila's dreams. The dreams of the three first bridals nights (which

were kept hallowed by a curious superstition, either because the dreams

would then bold good, or as is more likely, for fear of some Asmodeus)

were fateful. Animals and birds in dreams are read as persons, as

nowadays.

A "curse" is powerful unless it can be turned back, when it will harm

its utterer, for harm someone it must. The "curse" of a dying man on his

slayer, and its lack of effect, is noted.

Sometimes "magic messengers" are sent, like the swans that bore a token

and uttered warning songs to the hero.

"Witches and wizards" (as belonging to the older layer of archaic

beliefs) are hateful to the gods, and Woden casts them out as accursed,

though he himself was the mightiest of wizards. Heathen Teutonic life

was a long terror by reason of witchcraft, as is the heathen African

life to-day, continual precautions being needful to escape the magic of

enemies. The Icelandic Sagas, such as Gretter's, are full of magic and

witchcraft. It is by witchcraft that Gretter is first lamed and finally

slain; one can see that Glam's curse, the Beowulf motif, was not really

in the original Gretter story.

"Folk-medicine" is really a branch of magic in old days, even to such

pioneers of science as Paracelsus.

Saxo's traditions note drinking of a lion's blood that eats men as a

means of gaining might and strength; the drinking of bear's blood is

also declared to give great bodily power.

The tests for "madness" are of a primitive character, such as those

applied to Odusseus, who, however, was not able, like Hamlet, to evade

them.

The test for death is the red-hot iron or hot brand (used by the

Abyssinians of to-day, as it was supposed in the thirteenth century to

have been used by Grimhild. "And now Grimhild goes and takes a great

brand, where the house had burnt, and goes to Gernot her brother, and

thrusts the burning brand in his mouth, and will know whether he is dead

or living. But Gernot was clearly dead. And now she goes to Gislher and

thrusts the firebrand in his mouth. He was not dead before, but Gislher

died of that. Now King Thidrec of Bern saw what Grimhild is doing,

and speaks to King Attila. `See how that devil Grimhild, thy wife, is

killing her brothers, the good warriors, and how many men have lost

their lives for her sake, and how many good men she has destroyed, Huns

and Amalungs and Niflungs; and in the same way would she bring thee and

me to hell, if she could do it?' Then spake King Attila, `Surely she is

a devil, and slay thou her, and that were a good work if thou had done

it seven nights ago! Then many a gallant fellow were whole that is now

dead.' Now King Thidrec springs at Grimhild and swings up his sword

Eckisax, and hews her asunder at the middle").

It was believed (as in Polynesia, where "Captain Cook's path" was shown

in the grass) that the heat of the hero's body might blast the grass; so

Starcad's entrails withered the grass.

It was believed that a severed head might bite the ground in rage, and

there were certainly plenty of opportunities for observation of such

cases.

It was believed that a "dumb man" might be so wrought on by passion that

he would speak, and wholly acquire speech-power.

Little is told of "surgery", but in one case of intestines protruding

owing to wounds, withies were employed to bind round the trunk and keep

the bowels from risk till the patient could be taken to a house and his

wounds examined and dressed. It was considered heroic to pay little heed

to wounds that were not dangerous, but just to leave them to nature.

Personal "cleanliness" was not higher than among savages now. A lover is

loused by his lady after the mediaeval fashion.

CHRISTIANITY--In the first nine books of Saxo, which are devoted to

heathendom, there is not much save the author's own Christian point

of view that smacks of the New Faith. The apostleships of Ansgarius in

Denmark, the conversion of King Eric, the Christianity of several later

Danish Kings, one of whom was (like Olaf Tryggwason) baptised in Britain

are also noticed.

Of "Christian legends" and beliefs, besides the euhemerist theory,

widely held, of the heathen gods there are few hints, save the idea

that Christ was born in the reign of Frode, Frode having been somehow

synchronised with Augustus, in whose reign also there was a world-peace.

Of course the christening of Scandinavia is history, and the mythic

books are little concerned with it. The episode in Adam of Bremen, where

the king offers the people, if they want a new god, to deify Eric, one

of their hero-kings, is eminently characteristic and true.

FOLK-TALES.

There might be a classification of Saxo's stories akin to that of the

Irish poets, Battles, Sieges, Voyages, Rapes, Cattle Forays, etc.; and

quite apart from the historic element, however faint and legendary,

there are a set of stories ascribed by him, or rather his authorities,

to definite persons, which had, even in his day, probably long been the

property of Tis, their original owners not being known owing to lapse

of time and the wear of memory, and the natural and accidental

catastrophies that impair the human record. Such are the "Dragon-Slayer"

stories. In one type of these the hero (Frithlaf) is cast on a desolate

island, and warned by a dream to attack and slay a dragon guarding

treasure. He wakes, sees the dragon arise out of the waves, apparently,

to come ashore and go back to the cavern or mound wherein the treasure

lay. His scales are too hard to pierce; he is terribly strong, lashing

trees down with his tail, and wearing a deep path through the wood and

over the stones with his huge and perpetual bulk; but the hero, covered

with hide-wrapped shield against the poison, gets down into the

hollow path, and pierces the monster from below, afterward rifling its

underground store and carrying off its treasure.

Again the story is repeated; the hero (Frode Haddingsson) is warned by

a countryman of the island-dragon and its hoard, is told to cover his

shield and body with bulls' hides against the poison, and smite the

monster's belly. The dragon goes to drink, and, as it is coming back,

it is attacked, slain, and its treasure lifted precisely as before. The

analogies with the Beowulf and Sigfred stories are evident; but no great

poet has arisen to weave the dragon-slaying intimately into the lives of

Frode and Frithlaf as they have been woven into the tragedy of Sigfred

the wooer of Brunhild and, if Dr. Vigffisson be right the conqueror of

Varus, or into the story of Beowulf, whose real engagements were with

sea-monsters, not fiery dragons.

Another type is that of the "Loathly Worm". A king out hunting (Herod

or Herraud, King of Sweden), for some unexplained reason brings home two

small snakes as presents for his daughter. They wax wonderfully, have

to be fed a whole ox a day, and proceed to poison and waste the

countryside. The wretched king is forced to offer his daughter (Thora)

to anyone who will slay them. The hero (Ragnar) devises a dress of a

peculiar kind (by help of his nurse, apparently), in this case, woolly

mantle and hairy breeches all frozen and ice-covered to resist the

venom, then strapping his spear to his hand, he encounters them boldly

alone. The courtiers hide "like frightened little girls", and the king

betakes him to a "narrow shelter", an euphemism evidently of Saxo's, for

the scene is comic. The king comes forth when the hero is victorious,

and laughing at his hairy legs, nick-names him Shaggy-breech, and bids

him to the feast. Ragnar fetches up his comrades, and apparently seeks

out the frightened courtiers (no doubt with appropriate quip, omitted by

Saxo, who hurries on), feasts, marries the king's daughter, and begets

on her two fine sons.

Of somewhat similar type is the proud "Maiden guarded" by Beasts. Here

the scene is laid in Gaulardale in Norway. The lady is Ladgerda, the

hero Ragnar. Enamoured of the maiden by seeing her prowess in war, he

accepts no rebuffs, but leaving his followers, enters the house, slays

the guardian Bear and Dog, thrusting one through with a spear and

throttling the other with his hand. The lady is won and wed, and two

daughters and a son (Frithlaf) duly begotten. The story of Alf and

Alfhild combines several types. There are the tame snakes, the baffled

suitors' heads staked to terrify other suitors, and the hero using

red-hot iron and spear to slay the two reptiles.

The "Proud Lady", (cf. Kudrun and the Niebelungen, and Are's story

of the queen that burnt her suitors) appears in Hermintrude, Queen of

Scotland, who battles and slays her lovers, but is out-witted by the

hero (Hamlet), and, abating her arrogance, agrees to wed him. This seems

an obvious accretion in the original Hamlet story, and probably owing

not to Saxo, but to his authority.

The "Beggar that stole the Lady" (told of Snio Siwaldson and the

daughter of the King of the Goths), with its brisk dialogue, must have

been one of the most artful of the folk-tales worked on by Saxo or his

informants; but it is only half told, unfortunately.

The "Crafty Soaker" is another excellent comic folk-tale. A terrible

famine made the king (Snio) forbid brewing to save the barley for

bread, and abolished all needless toping. The Soaker baffled the king by

sipping, never taking a full draught. Rebuked, he declared that he never

drank, but only sucked a drop. This was forbidden him for the future, so

he sopped his bread in ale, and in that inconvenient manner continued to

get drunk, excusing himself with the plea that though it was forbidden

to drink or sip beer, it was not forbidden to eat it. When this was in

turn prohibited, the Soaker gave up any pretence, and brewed and

drank unabashed, telling the angry king that he was celebrating his

approaching funeral with due respect, which excuse led to the repeal of

the obnoxious decree. A good Rabelaisian tale, that must not have

been wide-spread among the Danish topers, whose powers both Saxo and

Shakespeare have celebrated, from actual experience no doubt.

The "Magician's tricks to elude pursuit", so common an incident in

our fairy tales, e.g., Michael Scot's flight, is ascribed here to the

wonder-working and uncanny Finns, who, when pursued, cast behind

them successively three pebbles, which become to their enemies' eyes

mountains, then snow, which appeared like a roaring torrent. But they

could not cast the glamour on Arngrim a third time, and were forced to

submit. The glamour here and in the case of the breaking of Balder's

barrow is akin to that which the Druid puts on the sons of Uisnach.

The tale of the king who shuts up his daughter in an "earth-house" or

underground chamber with treasures (weapons and gold and silver), in

fear of invasion, looks like a bit of folk-tale, such as the "Hind in

the Wood", but it may have a traditional base of some kind here.

A folk-tale, very imperfectly narrated, is the "Clever King's Daughter",

who evidently in the original story had to choose her suitor by his feet

(as the giantess in the prose Edda chooses her husband), and was able to

do so by the device she had practised of sewing up her ring in his leg

sometime before, so that when she touched the flesh she could feel the

hardness of the ring beneath the scar.

Bits of folk-tales are the "Device for escaping threatened death by

putting a log in one's bed" (as in our Jack the Giant-Killer). The

device, as old as David's wife, of dressing up a dummy (here a basket

with a dog inside, covered outside with clothes), while the hero

escapes, is told of Eormenric, the mighty Gothic King of Kings, who,

like Walter of Aquitaine, Theodoric of Varona, Ecgherht, and Arminius,

was an exile in his youth. This traditional escape of the two lads from

the Scyths should be compared with the true story in Paul the Deacon

of his little ancestor's captivity and bold and successful stroke for

freedom.

"Disguise" plays a great part in the folk-tales used by Saxo. Woden

disguises himself in a cowl on his earthly travels, and heroes do the

same; a king disguises himself as a slave at his rival's court, to try

and find occasion of slaying him; a hero wraps himself up in skins, like

Alleleirah.

"Escaped recognition" is accordingly a feature in many of these simple

but artistic plots. A son is not known by his mother in the story of

Hrolf.

Other "Devices" are exemplified, such as the "booby-trap" loaded with

a millstone, which slays a hateful and despised tyrant, imposed by

a foreign conqueror; evasion by secret passages, and concealment in

underground vaults or earth-houses. The feigning of madness to escape

death occurs, as well as in the better-known Hamlet story. These

stratagems are universal in folk-history.

To Eric, the clever and quick of speech, is ascribed an excellent

sailor's smuggling trick to hide slaughtered cattle, by sinking them

till the search is over.

The "Hero's Mighty Childhood" (like David's) of course occurs when

he binds a bear with his girdle. Sciold is full grown at fifteen, and

Hadding is full grown in extreme youth. The hero in his boyhood slays a

full-grown man and champion. The cinder-biting, lazy stage of a mighty

youth is exemplified.

The "fierce eyes" of the hero or heroine, which can daunt an assassin as

could the piercing glance of Marius, are the "falcon eyes" of the Eddic

Lays.

The shining, effulgent, "illuminating hair" of the hero, which gives

light in the darkness, is noticed here, as it obtains in Cuaran's

thirteenth century English legend.

The wide-spread tale of the "City founded on a site marked out by a hide

cut into finest thongs", occurs, told of Hella and Iwarus exactly as our

Kentishmen told it of Hengist, and as it is also told of Dido.

The incidents of the "hero sleeping by a rill", of the guarded king's

daughter, with her thirty attendants, the king's son keeping sheep, are

part of the regular stock incidents in European folk-tales. So are the

Nausicaa incident of the "king's daughter going a washing", the hero

disguising himself as a woman and winding wool (like a second Heracles).

There are a certain number of stories, which only occur in Saxo and in

our other Northern sources with attributions, though they are of course

legendary; such are:

The "Everlasting Battle" between Hedhin and Hogne, a legend connected

with the great Brisinga-men story, and paralleled by the Cordelia-tale

among the Britons.

The story of the "Children preserved" is not very clearly told, and

Saxo seems to have euhemerized. It is evidently of the same type as the

Lionel-Lancelot story in the Arthurian cycle. Two children, ordered to

be killed, are saved by the slaying of other children in their place;

and afterwards by their being kept and named as dogs; they come to their

own and avenge their wrongs.

The "Journey to Hell" story is told of Eric, who goes to a far land to

fetch a princess back, and is successful. It is apparently an adventure

of Swipdag, if everyone had their rights. It is also told of Thorkill,

whose adventures are rather of the "True Thomas" type.

The "Test of Endurance" by sitting between fires, and the relief of the

tortured and patient hero by a kindly trick, is a variant of the famous

Eddic Lays concerning Agnar.

The "Robbers of the Island", evidently comes from an Icelandic source

(cf. The historic "Holmveria Saga" and Icelandic folk-tales of later

date), the incident of the hero slaying his slave, that the body might

be mistaken for his, is archaic in tone; the powerful horse recalls

Grani, Bayard, and even Sleipner; the dog which had once belonged to

Unfoot (Ofote), the giant shepherd (cf. its analogues in old Welsh

tales), is not quite assimilated or properly used in this story.

It seems (as Dr. Rydberg suspects) a mythical story coloured by the

Icelandic relater with memory full of the robber-hands of his own land.

The stratagem of "Starcad", who tried even in death to slay his slayer,

seems an integral part of the Starcad story; as much as the doom of

three crimes which are to be the price for the threefold life that a

triple man or giant should enjoy. The noose story in Starcad (cf. that

told of Bicce in the Eormenric story), is also integral.

SAXO'S MYTHOLOGY.

No one has commented upon Saxo's mythology with such brilliancy, such

minute consideration, and such success as the Swedish scholar, Victor

Rydberg. More than occasionally he is over-ingenious and over-anxious to

reduce chaos to order; sometimes he almost loses his faithful reader in

the maze he treads so easily and confidently, and sometimes he stumbles

badly. But he has placed the whole subject on a fresh footing, and much

that is to follow will be drawn from his "Teutonic Mythology" (cited

here from the English version by Rasmus B. Anderson, London, 1889, as

"T.M.").

Let us take first some of the incontestable results of his

investigations that affect Saxo.

SCIOLD is the father of Gram in Saxo, and the son of Sceaf in other

older authorities. Dr. Rydberg (97-101) forms the following equations

for the Sciolding patriarchs:--

a. Scef--Heimdal--Rig.

b. Sciold--Borgar--Jarl.

c. Gram--Halfdan--Koming.

Chief among the mythic tales that concern Saxo are the various portions

of the Swipdag-Myth, which Dr. Rydberg has been able to complete with

much success. They may be resumed briefly as follows:--

Swipdag, helped by the incantations of his dead mother, whom he had

raised from the dead to teach him spells of protection, sets forth on

his quests. He is the Odusseus of the Teutonic mythology. He desires to

avenge his father on Halfdan that slew him. To this end he must have a

weapon of might against Halfdan's club. The Moon-god tells him of the

blade Thiasse has forged. It has been stolen by Mimer, who has gone out

into the cold wilderness on the rim of the world. Swipdag achieves the

sword, and defeats and slays Halfdan. He now buys a wife, Menglad, of

her kinsmen the gods by the gift of the sword, which thus passes into

Frey's hands.

How he established a claim upon Frey, and who Menglad was, is explained

in Saxo's story of Eric, where the characters may be identified thus:--

Swipdag--Eric

Freya--Gunwara

Frey--Frode III

Niord--Fridlaf

Wuldor--Roller

Thor--Brac

Giants--The Greps

Giants--Coller.

Frey and Freya had been carried off by the giants, and Swipdag and his

faithful friend resolve to get them back for the Anses, who bewail their

absence. They journey to Monster-land, win back the lady, who ultimately

is to become the hero's wife, and return her to her kindred; but her

brother can only be rescued by his father Niord. It is by wit rather

than by force that Swipdag is successful here.

The third journey of Swipdag is undertaken on Frey's behalf; he goes

under the name of Scirner to woo giant Gymer's daughter Gerth for his

brother-in-law, buying her with the sword that he himself had paid to

Frey as his sister's bride-price. So the sword gets back to the giants

again.

Swipdag's dead foe Halfdan left two young "avengers", Hadding and

Guthorm, whom he seeks to slay. But Thor-Brache gives them in charge

of two giant brothers. Wainhead took care of Hadding, Hafle of Guthorm.

Swipdag made peace with Guthorm, in a way not fully explained to us, but

Hadding took up the blood-feud as soon as he was old enough.

Hadding was befriended by a woman, who took him to the Underworld--the

story is only half told in Saxo, unluckily--and by Woden, who took him

over-sea wrapt in his mantle as they rode Sleipner over the waves; but

here again Saxo either had not the whole story before him, or he wished

to abridge it for some reason or prejudice, and the only result of this

astonishing pilgrimage is that Woden gives the young hero some useful

counsels. He falls into captivity, entrapped by Loke (for what reason

again we are left to guess), and is exposed to wild beasts, but he slays

the wolf that attacks him, and eating its heart as Woden had bidden him,

he gains wisdom and foresight.

Prepared by these adventures, he gets Guthorm to join him (how or why

the peace between him and Swipdag was broken, we know not), and they

attack their father's slayer, but are defeated, though Woden sunk Asmund

Swipdag's son's ship, Grio, at Hlessey, and Wainhead and Hardgrip his

daughter fought for Hadding.

Hadding wanders off to the East with his foster-sister and mistress and

Hardgrip, who is slain protecting him against an angry ghost raised from

the Underworld by her spells. However, helped by Heimdal and Woden (who

at this time was an exile), Hadding's ultimate success is assured.

When Woden came back to power, Swipdag, whose violence and pride grew

horribly upon him, was exiled, possibly by some device of his foes,

and took upon him, whether by will or doom, a sea-monster's shape. His

faithful wife follows him over land and sea, but is not able to save

him. He is met by Hadding and, after a fierce fight, slain. Swipdag's

wife cursed the conqueror, and he was obliged to institute an annual

sacrifice to Frey (her brother) at Upsale, who annuls the curse. Loke,

in seal's guise, tried to steal the necklace of Freya at the Reef of

Treasures, where Swipdag was slain, but Haimdal, also in sealskin,

fought him, and recovered it for the gods.

Other myths having reference to the goddesses appear in Saxo. There is

the story of "Heimdall and Sol", which Dr. Rydberg has recognised in the

tale of Alf and Alfhild. The same tale of how the god won the sun for

his wife appears in the mediaeval German King Ruther (in which title Dr.

Ryuberg sees Hrutr, a name of the ram-headed god).

The story of "Othar" (Od) and "Syritha" (Sigrid) is obviously that of

Freya and her lover. She has been stolen by the giants, owing to the

wiles of her waiting-maid, Loke's helper, the evil witch Angrbode. Od

seeks her, finds her, slays the evil giant who keeps her in the cave;

but she is still bewitched, her hair knotted into a hard, horny mass,

her eyes void of brightness. Unable to gain recognition he lets her go,

and she is made by a giantess to herd her flocks. Again found by Od, and

again refusing to recognise him, she is let go again. But this time

she flies to the world of men, and takes service with Od's mother and

father. Here, after a trial of her love, she and Od are reconciled.

Sywald (Sigwald), her father, weds Od's sister.

The tale of the vengeance of Balder is more clearly given by the Dane,

and with a comic force that recalls the Aristophanic fun of Loka-senna.

It appears that the story had a sequel which only Saxo gives. Woden

had the giantess Angrbode, who stole Freya, punished. Frey, whose

mother-in-law she was, took up her quarrel, and accusing Woden of

sorcery and dressing up like a woman to betray Wrind, got him banished.

While in exile Wuldor takes Woden's place and name, and Woden lives on

earth, part of the time at least, with Scathe Thiasse's daughter, who

had parted from Niord.

The giants now resolved to attack Ansegard; and Woden, under the name of

Yggr, warned the gods, who recall him after ten years' exile.

But for Saxo this part of the story of the wars of the gods would be

very fragmentary.

The "Hildiger story", where a father slays his son unwittingly, and

then falls at his brother's hand, a tale combining the Rustam and

the Balin-Balan types, is one of the Hilding tragedies, and curiously

preserved in the late "Saga of Asmund the Champions' bane". It is an

antithesis, as Dr. Rydberg remarks, to the Hildebrand and Hadubrand

story, where father and son must fight and are reconciled.

The "story of Orwandel" (the analogue of Orion the Hunter) must be

gathered chiefly from the prose Edda. He was a huntsman, big enough and

brave enough to cope with giants. He was the friend of Thor, the husband

of Groa, the father of Swipdag, the enemy of giant Coller and the

monster Sela. The story of his birth, and of his being blinded, are

lost apparently in the Teutonic stories, unless we may suppose that the

bleeding of Robin Hood till he could not see by the traitorous prioress

is the last remains of the story of the great archer's death.

Great part of the troubles which befell the gods arose from the

antagonism of the sons of Iwalde and the brethren Sindre and Brokk

(Cinder and Brank), rival artist families; and it was owing to the

retirement of their artist foster-parents that Frey and Freya were left

among the giants. The Hniflung hoard is also supposed to have consisted

of the treasures of one band of primaeval artists, the Iwaldings.

Whether we have here the phenomenon of mythological doublets belonging

to different tribes, or whether we have already among these early names

that descent of story which has led to an adventure of Moses being

attributed to Garibaldi, given to Theodoric the king the adventures

of Theodoric the god, taken Arthur to Rome, and Charles the Great to

Constantinople, it is hard to say.

The skeleton-key of identification, used even as ably as Dr. Rydberg

uses it, will not pick every mythologic lock, though it undoubtedly has

opened many hitherto closed. The truth is that man is a finite animal;

that he has a limited number of types of legend; that these legends, as

long as they live and exist, are excessively prehensile; that, like the

opossum, they can swing from tree to tree without falling; as one tree

dies out of memory they pass on to another. When they are scared away

by what is called exact intelligence from the tall forest of great

personalities, they contrive to live humbly clinging to such bare plain

stocks and poles (Tis and Jack and Cinderella) as enable them to find a

precarious perch.

To drop similitudes, we must be prepared, in unravelling our tangled

mythology, to go through several processes. We must, of course, note the

parallelisms and get back to the earliest attribution-names we can find.

But all system is of late creation, it does not begin till a certain

political stage, a stage where the myths of coalescing clans come into

contact, and an official settlement is attempted by some school of

poets or priests. Moreover, systematization is never so complete that it

effaces all the earlier state of things. Behind the official systems of

Homer and Hesiod lies the actual chaos of local faiths preserved for us

by Pausanias and other mythographers. The common factors in the various

local faiths are much the majority among the factors they each possess;

and many of these common factors are exceedingly primitive, and resolve

themselves into answers to the questions that children still ask, still

receiving no answer but myth--that is, poetic and subjective hypothesis,

containing as much truth as they can receive or their inventors can

grasp.

Who were our forbears? How did day and night, sun and moon, earth and

water, and fire come? How did the animals come? Why has the bear no

tail? Why are fishes dumb, the swallow cleft-tail? How did evil come?

Why did men begin to quarrel? How did death arise? What will the end be?

Why do dead persons come back? What do the dead do? What is the earth

shaped like? Who invented tools and weapons, and musical instruments,

and how? When did kings and chiefs first come?

From accepted answers to such questions most of the huge mass of

mythology arises. Man makes his gods in his own image, and the doctrines

of omen, coincidence, and correspondence helped by incessant and

imperfect observation and logic, bring about a system of religious

observance, of magic and ritual, and all the masses of folly and

cruelty, hope and faith, and even charity, that group about their

inventions, and seem to be the necessary steps in the onward path of

progressive races.

When to these we add the true and exaggerated memories of actual heroes,

the material before the student is pretty completely comprised. Though

he must be prepared to meet the difficulties caused in the contact of

races, of civilisations, by the conversion of persons holding one set of

mythical ideas to belief in another set of different, more attractive,

and often more advanced stage.

The task of arriving at the scientific, speculative ethic, and the

actual practice of our remote ancestry (for to that end is the student

of mythology and folk-lore aiming) is not therefore easy. Nor is the

record perfect, though it is not so poor in most cases as was once

believed. The Brothers Grimm, patriarchs alike as mythologists and

folk-lorists, the Castor and Pollox of our studies, have proved this as

regards the Teutonic nations, just as they showed us, by many a striking

example, that in great part folk-lore was the mythology of to-day, and

mythology the folk-lore of yesterday.

In many cases we are helped by quite modern material to make out some

puzzle that an old tale presents, and there is little doubt but that the

present activity in the field of folklore will not only result in fresh

matter but in fresh methods freshly applied.

The Scandinavian material, at all events, is particularly rich: there is

the extensive Icelandic written literature touching the ninth and

tenth and eleventh centuries; the noble, if fragmentary remains of Old

Northern poetry of the Wickingtide; and lastly, the mass of tradition

which, surviving in oral form, and changing in colour from generation to

generation, was first recorded in part in the seventeenth, and again in

part, in the present century; and all these yield a plentiful field for

research. But their evidence gains immensely by the existence of Saxo's

nine books of traditional and mythic lore, collected and written down in

an age when much that was antique and heathen was passing away forever.

The gratitude due to the Welshman of the twelfth century, whose garnered

hoard has enriched so many poets and romances from his day to now, is

no less due to the twelfth-century Dane, whose faithful and eloquent

enthusiasm has swept much dust from antique time, and saved us such a

story as Shakespeare has not disdained to consecrate to highest use. Not

only Celtic and Teutonic lore are the richer for these two men, but

the whole Western world of thought and speech. In the history of modern

literature, it is but right that by the side of Geoffrey an honourable

place should be maintained for Saxo, and

"awake remembrance of these mighty dead."

--Oliver Elton

ENDNOTES:

(1) A horn and a tusk of great size are described as things of

price, and great uroch's horns are mentioned in Thorkill's

Second Journey. Horns were used for feast as well as fray.

(2) Such bird-beaked, bird-legged figures occur on the Cross at

Papil, Burra Island, Shetland. Cf. Abbey Morne Cross, and

an Onchan Cross, Isle of Man.

THE DANISH HISTORY OF SAXO GRAMMATICUS.

PREFACE.

Forasmuch as all other nations are wont to vaunt the glory of their

achievements, and reap joy from the remembrance of their forefathers:

Absalon, Chief Pontiff of the Danes, whose zeal ever burned high for the

glorification of our land, and who would not suffer it to be

defrauded of like renown and record, cast upon me, the least of his

followers--since all the rest refused the task--the work of compiling

into a chronicle the history of Denmark, and by the authority of his

constant admonition spurred my weak faculty to enter on a labour too

heavy for its strength. For who could write a record of the deeds of

Denmark? It had but lately been admitted to the common faith: it still

languished as strange to Latin as to religion. But now that the holy

ritual brought also the command of the Latin tongue, men were as

slothful now as they were unskilled before, and their sluggishness

proved as faultful as that former neediness. Thus it came about that my

lowliness, though perceiving itself too feeble for the aforesaid burden,

yet chose rather to strain beyond its strength than to resist his

bidding; fearing that while our neighbours rejoiced and transmitted

records of their deeds, the repute of our own people might appear not

to possess any written chronicle, but rather to be sunk in oblivion and

antiquity. Thus I, forced to put my shoulder, which was unused to the

task, to a burden unfamiliar to all authors of preceding time,

and dreading to slight his command, have obeyed more boldly than

effectually, borrowing from the greatness of my admonisher that good

heart which the weakness of my own wit denied me.

And since, ere my enterprise reached its goal, his death outran it; I

entreat thee chiefly, Andrew, who wast chosen by a most wholesome and

accordant vote to be successor in the same office and to headship of

spiritual things, to direct and inspire my theme; that I may baulk by

the defence of so great an advocate that spiteful detraction which

ever reviles what is most conspicuous. For thy breast, very fruitful in

knowledge, and covered with great store of worshipful doctrines, is to

be deemed a kind of shrine of heavenly treasures. Thou who hast searched

through Gaul and Italy and Britain also in order to gather knowledge of

letters and amass them abundantly, didst after thy long wandering obtain

a most illustrious post in a foreign school, and proved such a pillar

thereof, that thou seemedst to confer more grace on thy degree than it

did on thee. Then being made, on account of the height of thy honours

and the desert of thy virtues, Secretary to the King, thou didst adorn

that employment, in itself bounded and insignificant, with such works of

wisdom as to leave it a piece of promotion for men of greatest rank to

covet afterwards, when thou wert transferred to that office which now

thou holdest. Wherefore Skaane has been found to leap for joy that she

has borrowed a Pontiff from her neighbours rather than chosen one from

her own people; inasmuch as she both elected nobly and deserved joy of

her election. Being a shining light, therefore, in lineage, in letters,

and in parts, and guiding the people with the most fruitful labours of

thy teaching, thou hast won the deepest love of thy flock, and by thy

boldness in thy famous administration hast conducted the service thou

hast undertaken unto the summit of renown. And lest thou shouldst seem

to acquire ownership on the strength of prescription, thou hast, by

a pious and bountiful will, made over a very rich inheritance to Holy

Church; choosing rather honourably to reject riches (which are covered

with the rust of cares) than to be shackled with the greed of them and

with their burden. Likewise thou hast set about an amazing work upon

the reverend tenets of the faith; and in thy zeal to set the service of

public religion before thy private concerns, hast, by the lesson of thy

wholesome admonitions, driven those men who refused payment of the dues

belonging to religion to do to holy things the homage that they ought;

and by thy pious gift of treasure hast atoned for the ancient neglect of

sacred buildings. Further, those who pursued a wanton life, and yielded

to the stress of incontinence above measure, thou hast redeemed from

nerveless sloth to a more upright state of mind, partly by continuing

instant in wholesome reproof, and partly by the noble example of simple

living; leaving it in doubt whether thou hast edified them more by word

or deed. Thus thou, by mere counsels of wisdom, hast achieved what it

was not granted to any of thy forerunners to obtain.

And I would not have it forgotten that the more ancient of the Danes,

when any notable deeds of mettle had been done, were filled with

emulation of glory, and imitated the Roman style; not only by relating

in a choice kind of composition, which might be called a poetical work,

the roll of their lordly deeds; but also by having graven upon rocks

and cliffs, in the characters of their own language, the works of their

forefathers, which were commonly known in poems in the mother tongue.

In the footsteps of these poems, being as it were classic books of

antiquity, I have trod; and keeping true step with them as I translated,

in the endeavour to preserve their drift, I have taken care to render

verses by verses; so that the chronicle of what I shall have to

write, being founded upon these, may thus be known, not for a modern

fabrication, but for the utterance of antiquity; since this present work

promises not a trumpery dazzle of language, but faithful information

concerning times past.

Moreover, how many histories must we suppose that men of such genius

would have written, could they have had skill in Latin and so slaked

their thirst for writing! Men who though they lacked acquaintance with,

the speech of Rome, were yet seized with such a passion for bequeathing

some record of their history, that they encompassed huge boulders

instead of scrolls, borrowing rocks for the usage of books.

Nor may the pains of the men of Thule be blotted in oblivion; for though

they lack all that can foster luxury (so naturally barren is the

soil), yet they make up for their neediness by their wit, by keeping

continually every observance of soberness, and devoting every instant

of their lives to perfecting our knowledge of the deeds of foreigners.

Indeed, they account it a delight to learn and to consign to remembrance

the history of all nations, deeming it as great a glory to set forth the

excellences of others as to display their own. Their stores, which are

stocked with attestations of historical events, I have examined somewhat

closely, and have woven together no small portion of the present work by

following their narrative, not despising the judgment of men whom I know

to be so well versed in the knowledge of antiquity. And I have taken

equal care to follow the statements of Absalon, and with obedient mind

and pen to include both his own doings and other men's doings of which

he learnt; treasuring the witness of his August narrative as though it

were some teaching from the skies.

Wherefore, Waldemar, (1) healthful Prince and Father of us all, shining

light of thy land, whose lineage, most glorious from times of old, I am

to relate, I beseech thee let thy grace attend the faltering course of

this work; for I am fettered under the weight of my purpose, and dread

that I may rather expose my unskillfulness and the feebleness of my

parts, than portray thy descent as I duly should. For, not to speak of

thy rich inheritance from thy fathers, thou hast nobly increased thy

realm by conquering thy neighbours, and in the toil of spreading thy

sovereignty hast encompassed the ebbing and flowing waves of Elbe, thus

adding to thy crowded roll of honours no mean portion of fame. And after

outstripping the renown and repute of thy forerunners by the greatness

of thy deeds, thou didst not forbear to make armed, assault even upon

part of the Roman empire. And though thou art deemed to be well endowed

with courage and generosity, thou hast left it in doubt whether thou

dost more terrify to thy foes in warfare or melt thy people by thy

mildness. Also thy most illustrious grandsire, who was sanctioned with

the honours of public worship, and earned the glory of immortality by

an unmerited death, now dazzles by the refulgence of his holiness those

whom living he annexed in his conquests. And from his most holy wounds

more virtue than blood hath flowed.

Moreover I, bound by an old and inherited duty of obedience, have set

my heart on fighting for thee, if it be only with all the forces of

my mind; my father and grandfather being known to have served thy

illustrious sire in camp with loyal endurance of the toils of war.

Relying therefore on thy guidance and regard, I have resolved to begin

with the position and configuration of our own country; for I shall

relate all things as they come more vividly, if the course of this

history first traverse the places to which the events belong, and take

their situation as the starting-point for its narrative.

The extremes, then, of this country are partly bounded by a frontier of

another land, and partly enclosed by the waters of the adjacent sea. The

interior is washed and encompassed by the ocean; and this, through the

circuitous winds of the interstices, now straitens into the narrows of a

firth, now advances into ampler bays, forming a number of islands. Hence

Denmark is cut in pieces by the intervening waves of ocean, and has but

few portions of firm and continuous territory; these being divided

by the mass of waters that break them up, in ways varying with the

different angle of the bend of the sea. Of all these, Jutland, being the

largest and first settled, holds the chief place in the Danish kingdom.

It both lies fore-most and stretches furthest, reaching to the frontiers

of Teutonland, from contact with which it is severed by the bed of the

river Eyder. Northwards it swells somewhat in breadth, and runs out to

the shore of the Noric Channel (Skagerrak). In this part is to be found

the fjord called Liim, which is so full of fish that it seems to yield

the natives as much food as the whole soil.

Close by this fjord also lies Lesser (North) Friesland, which curves in

from the promontory of Jutland in a cove of sinking plains and shelving

lap, and by the favour of the flooding ocean yields immense crops of

grain. But whether this violent inundation bring the inhabitants more

profit or peril, remains a vexed question. For when the (dykes of the)

estuaries, whereby the waves of the sea are commonly checked among that

people, are broken through by the greatness of the storm, such a mass

of waters is wont to overrun the fields that it sometimes overwhelms not

only the tilled lands, but people and their dwellings likewise.

Eastwards, after Jutland, comes the Isle of Funen, cut off from the

mainland by a very narrow sound of sea. This faces Jutland on the west,

and on the east Zealand, which is famed for its remarkable richness

in the necessaries of life. This latter island, being by far the most

delightful of all the provinces of our country, is held to occupy the

heart of Denmark, being divided by equal distances from the extreme

frontier; on its eastern side the sea breaks through and cuts off

the western side of Skaane; and this sea commonly yields each year an

abundant haul to the nets of the fishers. Indeed, the whole sound is apt

to be so thronged with fish that any craft which strikes on them is with

difficulty got off by hard rowing, and the prize is captured no longer

by tackle, but by simple use of the hands.

Moreover, Halland and Bleking, shooting forth from the mass of the

Skaane like two branches from a parent trunk, are linked to Gothland and

to Norway, though with wide deviations of course, and with various

gaps consisting of fjords. Now in Bleking is to be seen a rock which

travellers can visit, dotted with letters in a strange character. For

there stretches from the southern sea into the desert of Vaarnsland a

road of rock, contained between two lines a little way apart and very

prolonged, between which is visible in the midst a level space, graven

all over with characters made to be read. And though this lies so

unevenly as sometimes to break through the tops of the hills, sometimes

to pass along the valley bottoms, yet it can be discerned to preserve

continuous traces of the characters. Now Waldemar, well-starred son of

holy Canute, marvelled at these, and desired to know their purport, and

sent men to go along the rock and gather with close search the series of

the characters that were to be seen there; they were then to denote them

with certain marks, using letters of similar shape. These men could not

gather any sort of interpretation of them, because owing to the hollow

space of the graving being partly smeared up with mud and partly worn by

the feet of travellers in the trampling of the road, the long line that

had been drawn became blurred. Hence it is plain that crevices, even in

the solid rock, if long drenched with wet, become choked either by the

solid washings of dirt or the moistening drip of showers.

But since this country, by its closeness of language as much as of

position, includes Sweden and Norway, I will record their divisions and

their climates also as I have those of Denmark. These territories, lying

under the northern pole, and facing Bootes and the Great Bear, reach

with their utmost outlying parts the latitude of the freezing zone; and

beyond these the extraordinary sharpness of the cold suffers not human

habitation. Of these two, Norway has been allotted by the choice of

nature a forbidding rocky site. Craggy and barren, it is beset all

around by cliffs, and the huge desolate boulders give it the aspect of

a rugged and a gloomy land; in its furthest part the day-star is not

hidden even by night; so that the sun, scorning the vicissitudes of day

and night, ministers in unbroken presence an equal share of his radiance

to either season.

On the west of Norway comes the island called Iceland, with the mighty

ocean washing round it: a land very squalid to dwell in, but noteworthy

for marvels, both strange occurrences and objects that pass belief. A

spring is there which, by the malignant reek of its water, destroys the

original nature of anything whatsoever. Indeed, all that is sprinkled

with the breath of its vapour is changed into the hardness of stone.

It remains a doubt whether it be more marvellous or more perilous, that

soft and flowing water should be invested with such a stiffness, as by a

sudden change to transmute into the nature of stone whatsoever is put to

it and drenched with its reeking fume, nought but the shape surviving.

Here also are said to be other springs, which now are fed with floods

of rising water, and, overflowing in full channels, cast a mass of spray

upwards; and now again their bubbling flags, and they can scarce be

seen below at the bottom, and are swallowed into deep hiding far under

ground. Hence, when they are gushing over, they bespatter everything

about them with the white spume, but when they are spent the sharpest

eye cannot discern them. In this island there is likewise a mountain,

whose floods of incessant fire make it look like a glowing rock, and

which, by belching out flames, keeps its crest in an everlasting blaze.

This thing awakens our wonder as much as those aforesaid; namely, when

a land lying close to the extreme of cold can have such abundance of

matter to keep up the heat, as to furnish eternal fires with unseen

fuel, and supply an endless provocative to feed the burning. To this

isle also, at fixed and appointed seasons, there drifts a boundless mass

of ice, and when it approaches and begins to dash upon the rugged reefs,

then, just as if the cliffs rang reply, there is heard from the deep a

roar of voices and a changing din of extraordinary clamour. Whence it

is supposed that spirits, doomed to torture for the iniquity of their

guilty life, do here pay, by that bitter cold, the penalty of their

sins. And so any portion of this mass that is cut off when the aforesaid

ice breaks away from the land, soon slips its bonds and bars, though it

be made fast with ever so great joins and knots. The mind stands dazed

in wonder, that a thing which is covered with bolts past picking, and

shut in by manifold and intricate barriers, should so depart after that

mass whereof it was a portion, as by its enforced and inevitable flight

to baffle the wariest watching. There also, set among the ridges

and crags of the mountains, is another kind of ice which is known

periodically to change and in a way reverse its position, the upper

parts sinking to the bottom, and the lower again returning to the top.

For proof of this story it is told that certain men, while they chanced

to be running over the level of ice, rolled into the abyss before them,

and into the depths of the yawning crevasses, and were a little later

picked up dead without the smallest chink of ice above them. Hence it

is common for many to imagine that the urn of the sling of ice first

swallows them, and then a little after turns upside down and restores

them. Here also, is reported to bubble up the water of a pestilent

flood, which if a man taste, he falls struck as though by poison. Also

there are other springs, whose gushing waters are said to resemble the

quality of the bowl of Ceres. There are also fires, which, though they

cannot consume linen, yet devour so fluent a thing as water. Also

there is a rock, which flies over mountain-steeps, not from any outward

impulse, but of its innate and proper motion.

And now to unfold somewhat more thoroughly our delineation of Norway.

It should be known that on the east it is conterminous with Sweden and

Gothland, and is bounded on both sides by the waters of the neighbouring

ocean. Also on the north it faces a region whose position and name are

unknown, and which lacks all civilisation, but teems with peoples of

monstrous strangeness; and a vast interspace of flowing sea severs it

from the portion of Norway opposite. This sea is found hazardous for

navigation, and suffers few that venture thereon to return in peace.

Moreover, the upper bend of the ocean, which cuts through Denmark and

flows past it, washes the southern side of Gothland with a gulf of some

width; while its lower channel, passing the northern sides of Gothland

and Norway, turns eastwards, widening much in breadth, and is bounded

by a curve of firm land. This limit of the sea the elders of our race

called Grandvik. Thus between Grandvik and the Southern Sea there lies

a short span of mainland, facing the seas that wash on either shore;

and but that nature had set this as a boundary where the billows almost

meet, the tides of the two seas would have flowed into one, and cut off

Sweden and Norway into an island. The regions on the east of these

lands are inhabited by the Skric-Finns. This people is used to an

extraordinary kind of carriage, and in its passion for the chase strives

to climb untrodden mountains, and attains the coveted ground at the cost

of a slippery circuit. For no crag juts out so high, but they can reach

its crest by fetching a cunning compass. For when they first leave the

deep valleys, they glide twisting and circling among the bases of the

rocks, thus making the route very roundabout by dint of continually

swerving aside, until, passing along the winding curves of the tracks,

they conquer the appointed summit. This same people is wont to use the

skins of certain beasts for merchandise with its neighbours.

Now Sweden faces Denmark and Norway on the west, but on the south and on

much of its eastern side it is skirted by the ocean. Past this eastward

is to be found a vast accumulation of motley barbarism.

That the country of Denmark was once cultivated and worked by giants, is

attested by the enormous stones attached to the barrows and caves of

the ancients. Should any man question that this is accomplished by

superhuman force, let him look up at the tops of certain mountains and

say, if he knows how, what man hath carried such immense boulders up to

their crests. For anyone considering this marvel will mark that it is

inconceivable how a mass, hardly at all or but with difficulty movable

upon a level, could have been raised to so mighty a peak of so lofty

a mountain by mere human effort, or by the ordinary exertion of human

strength. But as to whether, after the Deluge went forth, there existed

giants who could do such deeds, or men endowed beyond others with bodily

force, there is scant tradition to tell us.

But, as our countrymen aver, those who even to-day are said to dwell

in that rugged and inaccessible desert aforesaid, are, by the mutable

nature of their bodies, vouchsafed the power of being now near, now far,

and of appearing and vanishing in turn. The approach to this desert is

beset with perils of a fearful kind, and has seldom granted to those

who attempted it an unscathed return. Now I will let my pen pass to my

theme.

ENDNOTES:

(1) Waldemar the Second (1203-42); Saxo does not reach his

history.

BOOK ONE.

Now Dan and Angul, with whom the stock of the Danes begins, were

begotten of Humble, their father, and were the governors and not

only the founders of our race. (Yet Dudo, the historian of Normandy,

considers that the Danes are sprung and named from the Danai.) And these

two men, though by the wish and favour of their country they gained

the lordship of the realm, and, owing to the wondrous deserts of

their bravery, got the supreme power by the consenting voice of their

countrymen, yet lived without the name of king: the usage whereof was

not then commonly resorted to by any authority among our people.

Of these two, Angul, the fountain, so runs the tradition, of the

beginnings of the Anglian race, caused his name to be applied to the

district which he ruled. This was an easy kind of memorial wherewith

to immortalise his fame: for his successors a little later, when they

gained possession of Britain, changed the original name of the island

for a fresh title, that of their own land. This action was much thought

of by the ancients: witness Bede, no mean figure among the writers of

the Church, who was a native of England, and made it his care to embody

the doings of his country in the most hallowed treasury of his pages;

deeming it equally a religious duty to glorify in writing the deeds of

his land, and to chronicle the history of the Church.

From Dan, however, so saith antiquity; the pedigrees of our kings

have flowed in glorious series, like channels from some parent spring.

Grytha, a matron most highly revered among the Teutons, bore him two

sons, HUMBLE and LOTHER.

The ancients, when they were to choose a king, were wont to stand on

stones planted in the ground, and to proclaim their votes, in order to

foreshadow from the steadfastness of the stones that the deed would be

lasting. By this ceremony Humble was elected king at his father's death,

thus winning a novel favour from his country; but by the malice of

ensuing fate he fell from a king into a common man. For he was taken by

Lother in war, and bought his life by yielding up his crown; such, in

truth, were the only terms of escape offered him in his defeat. Forced,

therefore, by the injustice of a brother to lay down his sovereignty, he

furnished the lesson to mankind, that there is less safety, though more

pomp, in the palace than in the cottage. Also, he bore his wrong so

meekly that he seemed to rejoice at his loss of title as though it were

a blessing; and I think he had a shrewd sense of the quality of a king's

estate. But Lother played the king as insupportably as he had played the

soldier, inaugurating his reign straightway with arrogance and crime;

for he counted it uprightness to strip all the most eminent of life or

goods, and to clear his country of its loyal citizens, thinking all his

equals in birth his rivals for the crown. He was soon chastised for his

wickedness; for he met his end in an insurrection of his country; which

had once bestowed on him his kingdom, and now bereft him of his life.

SKIOLD, his son, inherited his natural bent, but not his behaviour;

avoiding his inborn perversity by great discretion in his tender years,

and thus escaping all traces of his father's taint. So he appropriated

what was alike the more excellent and the earlier share of the family

character; for he wisely departed from his father's sins, and became a

happy counterpart of his grandsire's virtues. This man was famous in his

youth among the huntsmen of his father for his conquest of a monstrous

beast: a marvellous incident, which augured his future prowess. For he

chanced to obtain leave from his guardians, who were rearing him very

carefully, to go and see the hunting. A bear of extraordinary size

met him; he had no spear, but with the girdle that he commonly wore he

contrived to bind it, and gave it to his escort to kill. More than

this, many champions of tried prowess were at the same time of his life

vanquished by him singly; of these Attal and Skat were renowned and

famous. While but fifteen years of age he was of unusual bodily size

and displayed mortal strength in its perfection, and so mighty were the

proofs of his powers that the rest of the kings of the Danes were called

after him by a common title, the SKIOLDUNG'S. Those who were wont to

live an abandoned and flaccid life, and to sap their self-control by

wantonness, this man vigilantly spurred to the practice of virtue in

an active career. Thus the ripeness of Skiold's spirit outstripped

the fulness of his strength, and he fought battles at which one of his

tender years could scarce look on. And as he thus waxed in years and

valour he beheld the perfect beauty of Alfhild, daughter of the King of

the Saxons, sued for her hand, and, for her sake, in the sight of the

armies of the Teutons and the Danes, challenged and fought with Skat,

governor of Allemannia, and a suitor for the same maiden; whom he slew,

afterwards crushing the whole nation of the Allemannians, and forcing

them to pay tribute, they being subjugated by the death of their

captain. Skiold was eminent for patriotism as well as arms. For he

annulled unrighteous laws, and most heedfully executed whatsoever made

for the amendment of his country's condition. Further, he regained by

his virtue the realm that his father's wickedness had lost. He was the

first to proclaim the law abolishing manumissions. A slave, to whom he

had chanced to grant his freedom, had attempted his life by stealthy

treachery, and he exacted a bitter penalty; as though it were just that

the guilt of one freedman should be visited upon all. He paid off all

men's debts from his own treasury, and contended, so to say, with all

other monarchs in courage, bounty, and generous dealing. The sick he

used to foster, and charitably gave medicines to those sore stricken;

bearing witness that he had taken on him the care of his country and not

of himself. He used to enrich his nobles not only with home taxes, but

also with plunder taken in war; being wont to aver that the prize-money

should flow to the soldiers, and the glory to the general.

Thus delivered of his bitterest rival in wooing, he took as the prize of

combat the maiden, for the love of whom he had fought, and wedded her

in marriage. Soon after, he had by her a son, GRAM, whose wondrous parts

savoured so strongly of his father's virtues that he was deemed to tread

in their very footsteps. The days of Gram's youth were enriched with

surpassing gifts of mind and body, and he raised them to the crest of

renown. Posterity did such homage to his greatness that in the most

ancient poems of the Danes royal dignity is implied in his very name.

He practiced with the most zealous training whatsoever serves to sharpen

and strengthen the bodily powers. Taught by the fencers, he trained

himself by sedulous practice to parrying and dealing blows. He took to

wife the daughter of his upbringer, Roar, she being his foster-sister

and of his own years, in order the better to show his gratefulness for

his nursing. A little while after he gave her in marriage to a certain

Bess, since he had ofttimes used his strenuous service. In this partner

of his warlike deeds he put his trust; and he has left it a question

whether he has won more renown by Bess's valour or his own.

Gram, chancing to hear that Groa, daughter of Sigtryg, King of the

Swedes, was plighted to a certain giant, and holding accursed an union

so unworthy of the blood royal, entered on a Swedish war; being

destined to emulate the prowess of Hercules in resisting the attempts of

monsters. He went into Gothland, and, in order to frighten people out of

his path, strode on clad in goats' skins, swathed in the motley hides of

beasts, and grasping in his right hand a dreadful weapon, thus feigning

the attire of a giant; when he met Groa herself riding with a very

small escort of women on foot, and making her way, as it chanced, to the

forest-pools to bathe, she thought it was her betrothed who had hastened

to meet her, and was scared with feminine alarm at so strange a garb:

so, flinging up the reins, and shaking terribly all over, she began in

the song of her country, thus:

"I see that a giant, hated of the king, has come, and darkens the

highways with his stride. Or my eyes play me false; for it has oft

befallen bold warriors to skulk behind the skin of a beast."

Then began Bess: "Maiden, seated on the shoulders of the steed, tell me,

pouring forth in thy turn words of answer, what is thy name, and of what

line art thou born?"

Groa replied: "Groa is my name; my sire is a king, glorious in blood,

gleaming in armour. Disclose to us, thou also, who thou art, or whence

sprung!"

To whom Bess: "I am Bess, brave in battle, ruthless to foes, a terror to

nations, and oft drenching my right hand in the blood of foes."

Then said Groa: "Who, prithee, commands your lines? Under what captain

raise ye the war-standards? What prince controls the battle? Under whose

guidance is the war made ready?"

Bess in answer: "Gram, the blest in battle, rules the array: force nor

fear can swerve him; flaming pyre and cruel sword and ocean billow have

never made him afraid. Led by him, maiden, we raise the golden standards

of war."

Groa once more: "Turn your feet and go back hence, lest Sigtryg vanquish

you all with his own array, and fasten you to a cruel stake, your

throats haltered with the cord, and doom your carcases to the stiff

noose, and, glaring evilly, thrust out your corpses to the hungry

raven."

Bess again: "Gram, ere he shall shut his own eyes in death, shall first

make him a ghost, and, smiting him on the crest, shall send him to

Tartarus. We fear no camp of the Swedes. Why threaten us with ghastly

dooms, maiden?"

Groa answered him: "Behold, I will ride thence to see again the roof of

my father which I know, that I may not rashly set eyes on the array of

my brother who is coming. And I pray that your death-doom may tarry for

you who abide."

Bess replied: "Daughter, to thy father go back with good cheer; nor

imprecate swift death upon us, nor let choler shake thy bosom. For often

has a woman, harsh at first and hard to a wooer, yielded the second

time."

Whereupon Gram could brook no longer to be silent, and pitching his

tones gruffly, so as to mimic a gruesome and superhuman voice, accosted

the maiden thus:

"Let not the maiden fear the brother of the fleet giant, nor turn pale

because I am nigh her. For I am sent by Grip, and never seek the couch

and embrace of damsels save when their wish matches mine."

Groa answered: "Who so mad as to wish to be the leman of giants? Or what

woman could love the bed that genders monsters? Who could be the wife

of demons, and know the seed whose fruit is monstrous? Or who would fain

share her couch with a barbarous giant? Who caresses thorns with her

fingers? Who would mingle honest kisses with mire? Who would unite

shaggy limbs to smooth ones which correspond not? Full ease of love

cannot be taken when nature cries out against it: nor doth the love

customary in the use of women sort with monsters."

Gram rejoined: "Oft with conquering hand I have tamed the necks of

mighty kings, defeating with stronger arm their insolent pride. Thence

take red-glowing gold, that the troth may be made firm by the gift, and

that the faith to be brought to our wedlock may stand fast."

Thus speaking, he cast off his disguises, and revealed his natural

comeliness; and by a single sight of him he filled the damsel with

well-nigh as much joy as he had struck her with fear before at his

counterfeit. She was even incited to his embraces by the splendour of

his beauty; nor did he fail to offer her the gifts of love.

Having won Groa, Bess proceeded and learnt that the road was beset

by two robbers. These he slew simply by charging them as they rushed

covetously forth to despoil him. This done, loth to seem to have done

any service to the soil of an enemy, he put timbers under the carcases

of the slain, fastened them thereto, and stretched them so as to

counterfeit an upright standing position; so that in their death they

might menace in seeming those whom their life had harmed in truth; and

that, terrible even after their decease, they might block the road

in effigy as much as they had once in deed. Whence it appears that in

slaying the robbers he took thought for himself and not for Sweden: for

he betokened by so singular an act how great a hatred of Sweden filled

him. Having heard from the diviners that Sigtryg could only be conquered

by gold, he straightway fixed a knob of gold to a wooden mace, equipped

himself therewith in the war wherein he attacked the king, and obtained

his desire. This exploit was besung by Bess in a most zealous strain of

eulogy:

"Gram, the fierce wielder of the prosperous mace, knowing not the steel,

rained blows on the outstretched sword, and with a stock beat off the

lances of the mighty.

"Following the decrees and will of the gods, he brought low the glory

of the powerless Swedes, doing their king to death and crushing him with

the stiff gold.

"For he pondered on the arts of war: he wielded in his clasp the

ruddy-flashing wood, and victoriously with noble stroke made their

fallen captain writhe.

"Shrewdly he conquered with the hardness of gold him whom fate forbade

should be slain by steel; unsworded, waging war with the worthier metal.

"This treasure, for which its deviser claims glory and the height of

honour, shall abide yet more illustrious hereafter, known far and wide

in ampler fame."

Having now slain Sigtryg, the King of Sweden, Gram desired to confirm

his possession of the empire which he had won in war; and therefore,

suspecting Swarin the governor of Gothland of aspiring to the crown, he

challenged him to combat, and slew him. This man's brethren, of whom

he had seven lawfully born, and nine the sons of a concubine, sought to

avenge their brother's death, but Gram, in an unequal contest, cut them

off.

Gram, for his marvellous prowess, was granted a share in the sovereignty

by his father, who was now in extreme age, and thought it better

and likewise more convenient to give his own blood a portion of

the supremacy of the realm, than now in the setting of his life to

administer it without a partner. Therefore Ring, a nobly-born Zealander,

stirred the greater part of the Danes with desire for insurrection;

fancying that one of these men was unripe for his rank, and that the

other had run the course of his powers, alleging the weakness in years

of both, and declaring that the wandering wit of an old man made the

one, and that of a boy the other, unfit for royal power. But they fought

and crushed him, making him an example to all men, that no season of

life is to be deemed incompatible with valour.

Many other deeds also King Gram did. He declared war against Sumble,

King of the Finns; but when he set eyes upon the King's daughter, Signe,

he laid down his arms, the foeman turned into the suitor, and, promising

to put away his own wife, he plighted troth with her. But, while much

busied with a war against Norway, which he had taken up against King

Swipdag for debauching his sister and his daughter, he heard from

a messenger that Signe had, by Sumble's treachery, been promised in

marriage to Henry, King of Saxony. Then, inclining to love the maiden

more than his soldiers, he left his army, privily made his way to

Finland, and came in upon the wedding, which was already begun. Putting

on a garb of the utmost meanness, he lay down at the table in a seat of

no honour. When asked what he brought, he professed skill in leechcraft.

At last, when all were drenched in drunkenness, he gazed at the maiden,

and amid the revels of the riotous banquet, cursing deep the fickleness

of women, and vaunting loud his own deeds of valour, he poured out the

greatness of his wrath in a song like this:

"Singly against eight at once I drove the darts of death, and smote nine

with a back-swung sword, when I slew Swarin, who wrongfully assumed his

honours and tried to win fame unmerited; wherefore I have oft dyed in

foreign blood my blade red with death and reeking with slaughter, and

have never blenched at the clash of dagger or the sheen of helmet. Now

Signe, the daughter of Sumble, vilely spurns me, and endures vows not

mine, cursing her ancient troth; and, conceiving an ill-ordered love,

commits a notable act of female lightness; for she entangles, lures, and

bestains princes, rebuffing beyond all others the lordly of birth;

yet remaining firm to none, but ever wavering, and bringing to birth

impulses doubtful and divided."

And as he spoke he leapt up from where he lay, and there he cut Henry

down while at the sacred board and the embraces of his friends, carried

off his bride from amongst the bridesmaids, felled most of the guests,

and bore her off with him in his ship. Thus the bridal was turned into a

funeral; and the Finns might learn the lesson, that hands should not be

laid upon the loves of other men.

After this SWIPDAG, King of Norway, destroyed Gram, who was attempting

to avenge the outrage on his sister and the attempt on his daughter's

chastity. This battle was notable for the presence of the Saxon forces,

who were incited to help Swipdag, not so much by love of him, as by

desire to avenge Henry.

GUTHORM and HADDING, the son of Gram (Groa being the mother of the first

and Signe of the second), were sent over to Sweden in a ship by their

foster-father, Brage (Swipdag being now master of Denmark), and put in

charge of the giants Wagnhofde and Hafle, for guard as well as rearing.

As I shall have briefly to relate doings of these folk, and would fain

not seem to fabricate what conflicts with common belief or outsteps the

faithful truth, it is worth the knowing that there were in old times

three kinds of magicians who by diverse sleights practiced extraordinary

marvels. The first of these were men of monstrous stock, termed

by antiquity giants; these by their exceeding great bodily stature

surpassed the size natural to mankind. Those who came after these were

the first who gained skill in divination from entrails, and attained the

Pythonic art. These surpassed the former in briskness of mental parts as

much as they fell behind them in bodily condition. Constant wars for

the supremacy were waged between these and the giants; till at last the

sorcerers prevailed, subdued the tribe of giants by arms, and acquired

not merely the privilege of ruling, but also the repute of being divine.

Both of these kinds had extreme skill in deluding the eyesight,

knowing how to obscure their own faces and those of others with divers

semblances, and to darken the true aspects of things with beguiling

shapes. But the third kind of men, springing from the natural union of

the first two, did not answer to the nature of their parents either in

bodily size or in practice of magic arts; yet these gained credit for

divinity with minds that were befooled by their jugglings.

Nor must we marvel if, tempted by the prodigious miracles of these folk,

the barbaric world fell to worshipping a false religion, when others

like unto these, who were mere mortals, but were reverenced with divine

honours, beguiled even the shrewdness of the Latins. I have touched on

these things lest, when I relate of sleights and marvels, I be checked

by the disbelief of the reader. Now I will leave these matters and

return to my theme.

Swipdag, now that he had slain Gram, was enriched with the realms of

Denmark and Sweden; and because of the frequent importunities of his

wife he brought back from banishment her brother Guthorm, upon his

promising tribute, and made him ruler of the Danes. But Hadding

preferred to avenge his father rather than take a boon from his foe.

This man's nature so waxed and throve that in the early season of

his youth he was granted the prime of manhood. Leaving the pursuit of

pleasure, he was constantly zealous in warlike exercises; remembering

that he was the son of a fighting father, and was bound to spend his

whole span of life in approved deeds of warfare. Hardgrep, daughter of

Wagnhofde, tried to enfeeble his firm spirit with her lures of love,

contending and constantly averring that he ought to offer the first

dues of the marriage bed in wedlock with her, who had proffered to his

childhood most zealous and careful fostering, and had furnished him with

his first rattle.

Nor was she content with admonishing in plain words, but began a strain

of song as follows:

"Why doth thy life thus waste and wander? Why dost thou pass thy years

unwed, following arms, thirsting for throats? Nor does my beauty draw

thy vows. Carried away by excess of frenzy, thou art little prone to

love. Steeped in blood and slaughter, thou judgest wars better than the

bed, nor refreshest thy soul with incitements. Thy fierceness finds no

leisure; dalliance is far from thee, and savagery fostered. Nor is thy

hand free from blasphemy while thou loathest the rites of love. Let

this hateful strictness pass away, let that loving warmth approach, and

plight the troth of love to me, who gave thee the first breasts of milk

in childhood, and helped thee, playing a mother's part, duteous to thy

needs."

When he answered that the size of her body was unwieldy for the embraces

of a mortal, since doubtless her nature was framed in conformity to her

giant stock, she said:

"Be not moved by my unwonted look of size. For my substance is sometimes

thinner, sometimes ampler; now meagre, now abundant; and I alter and

change at my pleasure the condition of my body, which is at one time

shrivelled up and at another time expanded: now my tallness rises to the

heavens, and now I settle down into a human being, under a more bounded

shape."

As he still faltered, and was slow to believe her words, she added the

following song:

"Youth, fear not the converse of my bed. I change my bodily outline in

twofold wise, and am wont to enjoin a double law upon my sinews. For I

conform to shapes of different figure in turn, and am altered at my

own sweet will: now my neck is star-high, and soars nigh to the lofty

Thunderer; then it falls and declines to human strength, and plants

again on earth that head which was near the firmament. Thus I lightly

shift my body into diverse phases, and am beheld in varying wise; for

changefully now cramped stiffness draws in my limbs, now the virtue of

my tall body unfolds them, and suffers them to touch the cloud-tops.

Now I am short and straitened, now stretch out with loosened knee; and I

have mutably changed myself like wax into strange aspects. He who knows

of Proteus should not marvel at me. My shape never stays the same, and

my aspect is twofold: at one time it contrasts its outstretched limbs,

at another shoots them out when closed; now disentangling the members

and now rolling them back into a coil. I dart out my ingathered limbs,

and presently, while they are strained, I wrinkle them up, dividing

my countenance between shapes twain, and adopting two forms; with the

greater of these I daunt the fierce, while with the shorter I seek the

embraces of men."

By thus averring she obtained the embraces of Hadding; and her love for

the youth burned so high that when she found him desirous of revisiting

his own land, she did not hesitate to follow him in man's attire, and

counted it as joy to share his hardships and perils. While upon the

journey she had undertaken, she chanced to enter in his company, in

order to pass the night, a dwelling, the funeral of whose dead master

was being conducted with melancholy rites. Here, desiring to pry into

the purposes of heaven by the help of a magical espial, she graved on

wood some very dreadful spells, and caused Hadding to put them under the

dead man's tongue; thus forcing him to utter, with the voice so given, a

strain terrible to hear:

"Perish accursed he who hath dragged me back from those below, let him

be punished for calling a spirit out of bale!

"Whoso hath called me, who am lifeless and dead, back from the abode

below, and hath brought me again into upper air, let him pay full

penalty with his own death in the dreary shades beneath livid Styx.

Behold, counter to my will and purpose, I must declare some bitter

tidings. For as ye go away from this house ye will come to the narrow

path of a grove, and will be a prey to demons all about. Then she who

hath brought our death back from out of void, and has given us a sight

of this light once more, by her prayers wondrously drawing forth the

ghost and casting it into the bonds of the body, shall bitterly bewail

her rash enterprise.

"Perish accursed he who hath dragged me back from those below, let him

be punished for calling a spirit out of bale!

"For when the black pestilence of the blast that engenders monsters has

crushed out the inmost entrails with stern effort, and when their hand

has swept away the living with cruel nail, tearing off limbs and rending

ravished bodies; then Hadding, thy life shall survive, nor shall the

nether realms bear off thy ghost, nor thy spirit pass heavily to the

waters of Styx; but the woman who hath made the wretched ghost come back

hither, crushed by her own guilt, shall appease our dust; she shall be

dust herself.

"Perish accursed he who hath dragged me back from those below, let him

be punished for calling a spirit out of bale!"

So, while they were passing the night in the forest foretold them, in a

shelter framed of twigs, a hand of extraordinary size was seen to wander

over the inside of the dwelling. Terrified at this portent, Hadding

entreated the aid of his nurse. Then Hardgrep, expanding her limbs and

swelling to a mighty bigness, gripped the hand fast and held it to her

foster-child to hew off. What flowed from the noisesome wounds he dealt

was not so much blood as corrupt matter. But she paid the penalty of

this act, presently being torn in pieces by her kindred of the same

stock; nor did her constitution or her bodily size help her against

feeling the attacks of her foes' claws.

Hadding, thus bereft of his foster-mother, chanced to be made an ally in

a solemn covenant to a rover, Lysir, by a certain man of great age that

had lost an eye, who took pity on his loneliness. Now the ancients, when

about to make a league, were wont to besprinkle their footsteps with

blood of one another, so to ratify their pledge of friendship by

reciprocal barter of blood. Lysir and Hadding, being bound thus in

the strictest league, declared war against Loker, the tyrant of the

Kurlanders. They were defeated; and the old man aforementioned took

Hadding, as he fled on horseback, to his own house, and there refreshed

him with a certain pleasant draught, telling him that he would find

himself quite brisk and sound in body. This prophetic advice he

confirmed by a song as follows:

"As thou farest hence, a foe, thinking thee a deserter, will assail

thee, that he may keep thee bound and cast thee to be devoured by the

mangling jaws of beasts. But fill thou the ears of the warders with

divers tales, and when they have done the feast and deep sleep holds

them, snap off the fetters upon thee and the loathly chains. Turn thy

feet thence, and when a little space has fled, with all thy might

rise up against a swift lion who is wont to toss the carcases of the

prisoners, and strive with thy stout arms against his savage shoulders,

and with naked sword search his heart-strings. Straightway put thy

throat to him and drink the steaming blood, and devour with ravenous

jaws the banquet of his body. Then renewed strength will come to

thy limbs, then shall undreamed-of might enter thy sinews, and

an accumulation of stout force shall bespread and nerve thy frame

through-out. I myself will pave the path to thy prayers, and will subdue

the henchmen in sleep, and keep them snoring throughout the lingering

night."

And as he spoke, he took back the young man on his horse, and set him

where he had found him. Hadding cowered trembling under his mantle; but

so extreme was his wonder at the event, that with keen vision he peered

through its holes. And he saw that before the steps of the horse lay

the sea; but was told not to steal a glimpse of the forbidden thing, and

therefore turned aside his amazed eyes from the dread spectacle of the

roads that he journeyed. Then he was taken by Loker, and found by very

sure experience that every point of the prophecy was fulfilled upon

him. So he assailed Handwan, king of the Hellespont, who was entrenched

behind an impregnable defence of wall in his city Duna, and withstood

him not in the field, but with battlements. Its summit defying all

approach by a besieger, he ordered that the divers kinds of birds who

were wont to nest in that spot should be caught by skilled fowlers, and

he caused wicks which had been set on fire to be fastened beneath their

wings. The birds sought the shelter of their own nests, and filled the

city with a blaze; all the townsmen flocked to quench it, and left the

gates defenceless. He attacked and captured Handwan, but suffered him to

redeem his life with gold for ransom. Thus, when he might have cut off

his foe, he preferred to grant him the breath of life; so far did his

mercy qualify his rage.

After this he prevailed over a great force of men of the East, and came

back to Sweden. Swipdag met him with a great fleet off Gottland; but

Hadding attacked and destroyed him. And thus he advanced to a lofty

pitch of renown, not only by the fruits of foreign spoil, but by

the trophies of his vengeance for his brother and his father. And he

exchanged exile for royalty, for he became king of his own land as soon

as he regained it.

At this time there was one Odin, who was credited over all Europe with

the honour, which was false, of godhead, but used more continually

to sojourn at Upsala; and in this spot, either from the sloth of the

inhabitants or from its own pleasantness, he vouchsafed to dwell with

somewhat especial constancy. The kings of the North, desiring more

zealously to worship his deity, embounded his likeness in a golden

image; and this statue, which betokened their homage, they transmitted

with much show of worship to Byzantium, fettering even the effigied arms

with a serried mass of bracelets. Odin was overjoyed at such notoriety,

and greeted warmly the devotion of the senders. But his queen Frigga,

desiring to go forth more beautified, called smiths, and had the gold

stripped from the statue. Odin hanged them, and mounted the statue upon

a pedestal, which by the marvellous skill of his art he made to speak

when a mortal touched it. But still Frigga preferred the splendour of

her own apparel to the divine honours of her husband, and submitted

herself to the embraces of one of her servants; and it was by this

man's device she broke down the image, and turned to the service of her

private wantonness that gold which had been devoted to public idolatry.

Little thought she of practicing unchastity, that she might the easier

satisfy her greed, this woman so unworthy to be the consort of a god;

but what should I here add, save that such a godhead was worthy of such

a wife? So great was the error that of old befooled the minds of men.

Thus Odin, wounded by the double trespass of his wife, resented the

outrage to his image as keenly as that to his bed; and, ruffled by these

two stinging dishonours, took to an exile overflowing with noble shame,

imagining so to wipe off the slur of his ignominy.

When he had retired, one Mit-othin, who was famous for his juggling

tricks, was likewise quickened, as though by inspiration from on high,

to seize the opportunity of feigning to be a god; and, wrapping the

minds of the barbarians in fresh darkness, he led them by the renown of

his jugglings to pay holy observance to his name. He said that the

wrath of the gods could never be appeased nor the outrage to their deity

expiated by mixed and indiscriminate sacrifices, and therefore forbade

that prayers for this end should be put up without distinction,

appointing to each of those above his especial drink-offering. But when

Odin was returning, he cast away all help of jugglings, went to Finland

to hide himself, and was there attacked and slain by the inhabitants.

Even in his death his abominations were made manifest, for those who

came nigh his barrow were cut off by a kind of sudden death; and after

his end, he spread such pestilence that he seemed almost to leave a

filthier record in his death than in his life: it was as though he would

extort from the guilty a punishment for his slaughter. The inhabitants,

being in this trouble, took the body out of the mound, beheaded it, and

impaled it through the breast with a sharp stake; and herein that people

found relief.

The death of Odin's wife revived the ancient splendour of his name,

and seemed to wipe out the disgrace upon his deity; so, returning from

exile, he forced all those, who had used his absence to assume the

honours of divine rank, to resign them as usurped; and the gangs of

sorcerers that had arisen he scattered like a darkness before the

advancing glory of his godhead. And he forced them by his power not only

to lay down their divinity, but further to quit the country, deeming

that they, who tried to foist themselves so iniquitously into the skies,

ought to be outcasts from the earth.

Meanwhile Asmund, the son of Swipdag, fought with Hadding to avenge his

father. And when he heard that Henry his son, his love for whom he set

even before his own life, had fallen fighting valiantly, his soul longed

for death, and loathed the light of day, and made a song in a strain

like this:

"What brave hath dared put on my armour? The sheen of the helmet serves

not him who tottereth, nor doth the breastplate fitly shelter him that

is sore spent. Our son is slain, let us riot in battle; my eager love

for him driveth me to my death, that I may not be left outliving my dear

child. In each hand I am fain to grasp the sword; now without shield let

us ply our warfare bare-breasted, with flashing blades. Let the rumour

of our rage beacon forth: boldly let us grind to powder the column of

the foe; nor let the battle be long and chafe us; nor let our onset be

shattered in rout and be still."

When he had said this, he gripped his hilt with both hands, and,

fearless of peril, swung his shield upon his back and slew many. Hadding

therefore called on the powers with which he was allied to protect him,

and on a sudden Wagnhofde rode up to fight on his side. And when Asmund

saw his crooked sword, he cried out, and broke into the following

strain:

"Why fightest thou with curved sword? The short sword shall prove thy

doom, the javelin shall be flung and bring forth death. Thou shouldst

conquer thy foe by thy hand, but thou trustest that he can be rent

by spells; thou trustest more in words than rigour, and puttest thy

strength in thy great resource. Why dost thus beat me back with thy

shield, threatening with thy bold lance, when thou art so covered with

wretched crimes and spotted all over? Thus hath the brand of shame

bestained thee, rotting in sin, lubber-lipped."

While he thus clamoured, Hadding, flinging his spear by the thong,

pierced him through. But Asmund lacked not comfort even for his death;

for while his life flickered in the socket he wounded the foot of his

slayer, and by this short instant of revenge he memorized his fall,

punishing the other with an incurable limp. Thus crippling of a limb

befell one of them and loss of life the other. Asmund's body was buried

in solemn state at Upsala and attended with royal obsequies. His wife

Gunnhild, loth to outlive him, cut off her own life with the sword,

choosing rather to follow her lord in death than to forsake him by

living. Her friends, in consigning her body to burial, laid her with her

husband's dust, thinking her worthy to share the mound of the man, her

love for whom she had set above life. So there lies Gunnhild, clasping

her lord somewhat more beautifully in the tomb than she had ever done in

the bed.

After this Hadding, now triumphant, wasted Sweden. But Asmund's son,

named Uffe, shrinking from a conflict, transported his army into

Denmark, thinking it better to assail the house of his enemy than to

guard his own, and deeming it a timely method of repelling his wrongs

to retaliate upon his foe what he was suffering at his hands. Thus the

Danes had to return and defend their own, preferring the safety of

their land to lordship of a foreign realm; and Uffe went back to his own

country, now rid of an enemy's arms.

Hadding, on returning from the Swedish war, perceived that his treasury,

wherein he was wont to store the wealth he had gotten by the spoils

of war, had been forced and robbed, and straightway hanged its keeper

Glumer, proclaiming by a crafty device, that, if any of the culprits

brought about the recovery of the stolen goods, he should have the

same post of honour as Glumer had filled. Upon this promise, one of

the guilty men became more zealous to reap the bounty than to hide his

crime, and had the money brought back to the king. His confederates

fancied he had been received into the king's closest friendship, and

believed that the honours paid him were as real as they were lavish; and

therefore they also, hoping to be as well rewarded, brought back their

moneys and avowed their guilt. Their confession was received at first

with promotion and favours, and soon visited with punishment, thus

bequeathing a signal lesson against being too confiding. I should judge

that men, whose foolish blabbing brought them to destruction, when

wholesome silence could have ensured their safety, well deserved to

atone upon the gallows for their breach of reticence.

After this Hadding passed the whole winter season in the utmost

preparation for the renewal of the war. When the frosts had been melted

by the springtime sun, he went back to Sweden and there spent five years

in warfare. By dint of this prolonged expedition, his soldiers, having

consumed all their provision, were reduced almost to the extremity of

emaciation, and began to assuage their hunger with mushrooms from the

wood. At last, under stress of extreme necessity, they devoured their

horses, and finally satisfied themselves with the carcases of dogs.

Worse still, they did not scruple to feed upon human limbs. So, when the

Danes were brought unto the most desperate straits, there sounded in

the camp, in the first sleep of the night, and no man uttering it, the

following song:

"With foul augury have ye left the abode of your country, thinking to

harry these fields in War. What idle notion mocks your minds? What blind

self-confidence has seized your senses, that ye think this soil can thus

be won. The might of Sweden cannot yield or quail before the War of the

stranger; but the whole of your column shall melt away when it begins

to assault our people in War. For when flight has broken up the furious

onset, and the straggling part of the fighters wavers, then to those

who prevail in the War is given free scope to slay those who turn their

backs, and they have earned power to smite the harder when fate drives

the renewer of the war headlong. Nor let him whom cowardice deters aim

the spears."

This prophecy was accomplished on the morrow's dawn by a great slaughter

of the Danes. On the next night the warriors of Sweden heard an

utterance like this, none knowing who spake it:

"Why doth Uffe thus defy me with grievous rebellion? He shall pay the

utmost penalty. For he shall be buried and transpierced under showers of

lances, and shall fall lifeless in atonement for his insolent attempt.

Nor shall the guilt of his wanton rancour be unpunished; and, as I

forebode, as soon as he joins battle and fights, the points shall fasten

in his limbs and strike his body everywhere, and his raw gaping wounds

no bandage shall bind up; nor shall any remedy heal over thy wide

gashes."

On that same night the armies fought; when two hairless old men, of

appearance fouler than human, and displaying their horrid baldness in

the twinkling starlight, divided their monstrous efforts with opposing

ardour, one of them being zealous on the Danish side, and the other as

fervent for the Swedes. Hadding was conquered and fled to Helsingland,

where, while washing in the cold sea-water his body which was scorched

with heat, he attacked and cut down with many blows a beast of unknown

kind, and having killed it had it carried into camp. As he was exulting

in this deed a woman met him and addressed him in these words:

"Whether thou tread the fields afoot, or spread canvas overseas, thou

shalt suffer the hate of the gods, and through all the world shalt

behold the elements oppose thy purposes. Afield thou shalt fall, on sea

thou shalt be tossed, an eternal tempest shall attend the steps of

thy wandering, nor shall frost-bind ever quit thy sails; nor shall thy

roof-tree roof thee, but if thou seekest it, it shall fall smitten by

the hurricane; thy herd shall perish of bitter chill. All things shall

be tainted, and shall lament that thy lot is there. Thou shalt be

shunned like a pestilent tetter, nor shall any plague be fouler than

thou. Such chastisement doth the power of heaven mete out to thee, for

truly thy sacrilegious hands have slain one of the dweller's above,

disguised in a shape that was not his: thus here art thou, the slayer of

a benignant god! But when the sea receives thee, the wrath of the prison

of Eolus shall be loosed upon thy head. The West and the furious North,

the South wind shall beat thee down, shall league and send forth their

blasts in rivalry; until with better prayers thou hast melted the

sternness of heaven, and hast lifted with appeasement the punishment

thou hast earned."

So, when Hadding went back, he suffered all things after this one

fashion, and his coming brought disquiet upon all peaceful places. For

when he was at sea a mighty storm arose and destroyed his fleet in a

great tempest: and when, a shipwrecked man, he sought entertainment, he

found a sudden downfall of that house. Nor was there any cure for his

trouble, ere he atoned by sacrifice for his crime, and was able to

return into favour with heaven. For, in order to appease the deities, he

sacrificed dusky victims to the god Frey. This manner of propitiation by

sacrifice he repeated as an annual feast, and left posterity to follow.

This rite the Swedes call Froblod (the sacrifice or feast of Frey).

Hadding chanced to hear that a certain giant had taken in troth

Ragnhild, daughter of Hakon, King of the Nitherians; and, loathing so

ignominious a state of affairs, and utterly abominating the destined

union, he forestalled the marriage by noble daring. For he went

to Norway and overcame by arms him that was so foul, a lover for a

princess. For he thought so much more of valour than of ease, that,

though he was free to enjoy all the pleasures of a king, he accounted it

sweeter than any delight to repel the wrongs done, not only to himself,

but to others. The maiden, not knowing him, ministered with healing

tendance to the man that had done her kindness and was bruised with many

wounds. And in order that lapse of time might not make her forget

him, she shut up a ring in his wound, and thus left a mark on his leg.

Afterwards her father granted her freedom to choose her own husband; so

when the young men were assembled at banquet, she went along them and

felt their bodies carefully, searching for the tokens she had stored up

long ago. All the rest she rejected, but Hadding she discovered by the

sign of the secret ring; then she embraced him, and gave herself to be

the wife of him who had not suffered a giant to win her in marriage.

While Hadding was sojourning with her a marvellous portent befell him.

While he was at supper, a woman bearing hemlocks was seen to raise her

head beside the brazier, and, stretching out the lap of her robe,

seemed to ask, "in what part of the world such fresh herbs had grown in

winter?" The king desired to know; and, wrapping him in her mantle, she

drew him with her underground, and vanished. I take it that the nether

gods purposed that he should pay a visit in the flesh to the regions

whither he must go when he died. So they first pierced through a certain

dark misty cloud, and then advancing along a path that was worn away

with long thoroughfaring, they beheld certain men wearing rich robes,

and nobles clad in purple; these passed, they at last approached sunny

regions which produced the herbs the woman had brought away. Going

further, they came on a swift and tumbling river of leaden waters,

whirling down on its rapid current divers sorts of missiles, and

likewise made passable by a bridge. When they had crossed this, they

beheld two armies encountering one another with might and main. And when

Hadding inquired of the woman about their estate: "These," she said,

"are they who, having been slain by the sword, declare the manner of

their death by a continual rehearsal, and enact the deeds of their past

life in a living spectacle." Then a wall hard to approach and to climb

blocked their further advance. The woman tried to leap it, but in vain,

being unable to do so even with her slender wrinkled body; then she

wrung off the head of a cock which she chanced to be taking down with

her, and flung it beyond the barrier of the walls; and forthwith the

bird came to life again, and testified by a loud crow to recovery of its

breathing. Then Hadding turned back and began to make homewards with

his wife; some rovers bore down on him, but by swift sailing he baffled

their snares; for though it was almost the same wind that helped both,

they were behind him as he clove the billows, and, as they had only just

as much sail, could not overtake him.

Meantime Uffe, who had a marvellously fair daughter, decreed that the

man who slew Hadding should have her. This sorely tempted one Thuning,

who got together a band of men of Perm (Byarmenses), being fain so to

win the desired advancement. Hadding was going to fall upon him, but

while he was passing Norway in his fleet he saw upon the beach an old

man signing to him, with many wavings of his mantle, to put into shore.

His companions opposed it, and declared that it would be a ruinous

diversion from their journey; but he took the man on board, and was

instructed by him how to order his army. For this man, in arranging

the system of the columns, used to take special care that the front row

consisted of two, the second of four, while the third increased and was

made up to eight, and likewise each row was double that in front of it.

Also the old man bade the wings of the slingers go back to the extremity

of the line, and put with them the ranks of the archers. So when the

squadrons were arranged in the wedge, he stood himself behind the

warriors, and from the wallet which was slung round his neck drew an

arbalist. This seemed small at first, but soon projected with more

prolonged tip, and accommodated ten arrows to its string at once, which

were shot all at once at the enemy in a brisk volley, and inflicted as

many wounds. Then the men of Perm, quitting arms for cunning, by their

spells loosed the sky in clouds of rain, and melted the joyous visage of

the air in dismal drenching showers. But the old man, on the other hand,

drove back with a cloud the heavy mass of storm which had arisen,

and checked the dripping rain by this barrier of mist. Thus Hadding

prevailed. But the old man, when he parted from him, foretold that the

death whereby he would perish would be inflicted, not by the might of an

enemy, but by his own hand. Also he forbade him to prefer obscure wars

to such as were glorious, and border wars to those remote.

Hadding, after leaving him, was bidden by Uffe to Upsala on pretence of

a interview; but lost all his escort by treachery, and made his escape

sheltered by the night. For when the Danes sought to leave the house

into which they had been gathered on pretext of a banquet, they found

one awaiting them, who mowed off the head of each of them with his

sword as it was thrust out of the door. For this wrongful act Hadding

retaliated and slew Uffe; but put away his hatred and consigned his body

to a sepulchre of notable handiwork, thus avowing the greatness of his

foe by his pains to beautify his tomb, and decking in death with costly

distinctions the man whom he used to pursue in his life with hot enmity.

Then, to win the hearts of the people he had subdued, he appointed

Hunding, the brother of Uffe, over the realm, that the sovereignty might

seem to be maintained in the house of Asmund, and not to have passed

into the hand of a stranger.

Thus his enemy was now removed, and he passed several years without any

stirring events and in utter disuse of arms; but at last he pleaded the

long while he had been tilling the earth, and the immoderate time he had

forborne from exploits on the seas; and seeming to think war a merrier

thing than peace, he began to upbraid himself with slothfulness in a

strain like this:

"Why loiter I thus in darksome hiding, in the folds of rugged hills, nor

follow seafaring as of old? The continual howling of the band of wolves,

and the plaintive cry of harmful beasts that rises to heaven, and the

fierce impatient lions, all rob my eyes of sleep. Dreary are the ridges

and the desolation to hearts that trusted to do wilder work. The stark

rocks and the rugged lie of the ground bar the way to spirits who are

wont to love the sea. It were better service to sound the firths with

the oars, to revel in plundered wares, to pursue the gold of others for

my coffer, to gloat over sea-gotten gains, than to dwell in rough lands

and winding woodlands and barren glades."

Then his wife, loving a life in the country, and weary of the

marin harmony of the sea-birds, declared how great joy she found in

frequenting the woodlands, in the following strain:

"The shrill bird vexes me as I tarry by the shore, and with its

chattering rouses me when I cannot sleep. Wherefore the noisy sweep of

its boisterous rush takes gentle rest from my sleeping eye, nor doth

the loud-chattering sea-mew suffer me to rest in the night, forcing its

wearisome tale into my dainty ears; nor when I would lie down doth it

suffer me to be refreshed, clamouring with doleful modulation of its

ill-boding voice. Safer and sweeter do I deem the enjoyment of the

woods. How are the fruits of rest plucked less by day or night than by

tarrying tossed on the shifting sea?"

At this time one Toste emerged, from the obscure spot of Jutland where

he was born, into bloody notoriety. For by all manner of wanton attacks

upon the common people he spread wide the fame of his cruelty, and

gained so universal a repute for rancour, that he was branded with

the name of the Wicked. Nor did he even refrain from wrongdoing to

foreigners, but, after foully harrying his own land, went on to assault

Saxony. The Saxon general Syfrid, when his men were hard put to it in

the battle, entreated peace. Toste declared that he should have what he

asked, but only if he would promise to become his ally in a war against

Hadding. Syfrid demurred, dreading to fulfill the condition, but by

sharp menaces Toste induced him to promise what he asked. For threats

can sometimes gain a request which soft-dealing cannot compass. Hadding

was conquered by this man in an affair by land; but in the midst of his

flight he came on his enemy's fleet, and made it unseaworthy by boring

the sides; then he got a skiff and steered it out to sea. Toste thought

he was slain, but though he sought long among the indiscriminate heaps

of dead, could not find him, and came back to his fleet; when he saw

from afar off a light boat tossing on the ocean billows. Putting out

some vessels, he resolved to give it chase, but was brought back by

peril of shipwreck, and only just reached the shore. Then he quickly

took some sound craft, and accomplished the journey which he had before

begun. Hadding, seeing he was caught, proceeded to ask his companion

whether he was a skilled and practised swimmer; and when the other said

he was not, Hadding despairing of flight, deliberately turned the vessel

over and held on inside to its hollow, thus making his pursuers think

him dead. Then he attacked Toste, who, careless and unaware, was

greedily watching over the remnants of his spoil; cut down his army,

forced him to quit his plunder, and avenged his own rout by that of

Toste.

But Toste lacked not heart to avenge himself. For, not having store

enough in his own land to recruit his forces--so heavy was the blow he

had received--he went to Britain, calling himself an ambassador. Upon

his outward voyage, for sheer wantonness, he got his crew together to

play dice, and when a wrangle arose from the throwing of the cubes, he

taught them to wind it up with a fatal affray. And so, by means of this

peaceful sport, he spread the spirit of strife through the whole ship,

and the jest gave place to quarrelling, which engendered bloody combat.

Also, fain to get some gain out of the misfortunes of others, he seized

the moneys of the slain, and attached to him a certain rover then

famous, named Koll; and a little after returned in his company to his

own land, where he was challenged and slain by Hadding, who preferred to

hazard his own fortune rather than that of his soldiers. For generals of

antique valour were loth to accomplish by general massacre what could be

decided by the lot of a few.

After these deeds the figure of Hadding's dead wife appeared before him

in his sleep, and sang thus:

"A monster is born to thee that shall tame the rage of wild beasts, and

crush with fierce mouth the fleet wolves."

Then she added a little: "Take thou heed; from thee hath issued a bird

of harm, in choler a wild screech-owl, in tongue a tuneful swan."

On the morrow the king, when he had shaken off slumber, told the vision

to a man skilled in interpretations, who explained the wolf to denote a

son that would be truculent and the word swan as signifying a daughter;

and foretold that the son would be deadly to enemies and the daughter

treacherous to her father. The result answered to the prophecy.

Hadding's daughter, Ulfhild, who was wife to a certain private person

called Guthorm, was moved either by anger at her match, or with

aspirations to glory, and throwing aside all heed of daughterly love,

tempted her husband to slay her father; declaring that she preferred

the name of queen to that of princess. I have resolved to set forth the

manner of her exhortation almost in the words in which she uttered it;

they were nearly these:

"Miserable am I, whose nobleness is shadowed by an unequal yoke! Hapless

am I, to whose pedigree is bound the lowliness of a peasant! Luckless

issue of a king, to whom a common man is equal by law of marriage!

Pitiable daughter of a prince, whose comeliness her spiritless father

hath made over to base and contemptible embraces! Unhappy child of

thy mother, with thy happiness marred by consorting with this bed! thy

purity is handled by the impurity of a peasant, thy nobility is bowed

down by ignoble commonness, thy high birth is impaired by the estate of

thy husband! But thou, if any pith be in thee, if valour reign in thy

soul at all, if thou deem thyself fit husband for a king's daughter,

wrest the sceptre from her father, retrieve thy lineage by thy valour,

balance with courage thy lack of ancestry, requite by bravery thy

detriment of blood. Power won by daring is more prosperous than that won

by inheritance. Boldness climbs to the top better than inheritance,

and worth wins power better than birth. Moreover, it is no shame to

overthrow old age, which of its own weight sinks and totters to its

fall. It shall be enough for my father to have borne the sceptre for

so long; let the dotard's power fall to thee; if it elude thee, it will

pass to another. Whatsoever rests on old age is near its fall. Think

that his reign has been long enough, and be it thine, though late in the

day, to be first. Further, I would rather have my husband than my father

king--would rather be ranked a king's wife than daughter. It is better

to embrace a monarch in one's home, than to give him homage from afar;

it is nobler to be a king's bride than his courtier. Thou, too, must

surely prefer thyself to thy wife's father for bearing the sceptre; for

nature has made each one nearest to himself. If there be a will for the

deed, a way will open; there is nothing but yields to the wit of man.

The feast must be kept, the banquet decked, the preparations looked

to, and my father bidden. The path to treachery shall be smoothed by a

pretence of friendship, for nothing cloaks a snare better than the name

of kindred. Also his soddenness shall open a short way to his slaughter;

for when the king shall be intent upon the dressing of his hair, and his

hand is upon his beard and his mind upon stories; when he has parted his

knotted locks, either with hairpin or disentangling comb, then let

him feel the touch of the steel in his flesh. Busy men commonly devise

little precaution. Let thy hand draw near to punish all his sins. It is

a righteous deed to put forth thy hand to avenge the wretched!"

Thus Ulfhild importuned, and her husband was overcome by her promptings,

and promised his help to the treachery. But meantime Hadding was warned

in a dream to beware of his son-in-law's guile. He went to the feast,

which his daughter had made ready for him with a show of love, and

posted an armed guard hard by to use against the treachery when need

was. As he ate, the henchman who was employed to do the deed of guile

silently awaited a fitting moment for his crime, his dagger hid under

his robe. The king, remarking him, blew on the trumpet a signal to the

soldiers who were stationed near; they straightway brought aid, and he

made the guile recoil on its deviser.

Meanwhile Hunding, King of the Swedes, heard false tidings that Hadding

was dead, and resolved to greet them with obsequies. So he gathered his

nobles together, and filled a jar of extraordinary size with ale, and

had this set in the midst of the feasters for their delight, and,

to omit no mark of solemnity, himself assumed a servant's part, not

hesitating to play the cupbearer. And while he was passing through the

palace in fulfilment of his office, he stumbled and fell into the jar,

and, being choked by the liquor, gave up the ghost; thus atoning either

to Orcus, whom he was appeasing by a baseless performance of the rites,

or to Hadding, about whose death he had spoken falsely. Hadding, when

he heard this, wished to pay like thanks to his worshipper, and, not

enduring to survive his death, hanged himself in sight of the whole

people.

BOOK TWO

HADDING was succeeded by FRODE, his son, whose fortunes were many and

changeful. When he had passed the years of a stripling, he displayed

the fulness of a warrior's prowess; and being loth that this should

be spoilt by slothfulness, he sequestered his mind from delights

and perseveringly constrained it to arms. Warfare having drained his

father's treasury, he lacked a stock of pay to maintain his troops, and

cast about diligently for the supplies that he required; and while

thus employed, a man of the country met him and roused his hopes by the

following strain:

"Not far off is an island rising in delicate slopes, hiding treasure in

its hills and ware of its rich booty. Here a noble pile is kept by the

occupant of the mount, who is a snake wreathed in coils, doubled in many

a fold, and with tail drawn out in winding whorls, shaking his manifold

spirals and shedding venom. If thou wouldst conquer him, thou must use

thy shield and stretch thereon bulls' hides, and cover thy body with

the skins of kine, nor let thy limbs lie bare to the sharp poison;

his slaver burns up what it bespatters. Though the three-forked tongue

flicker and leap out of the gaping mouth, and with awful yawn menace

ghastly wounds remember to keep the dauntless temper of thy mind; nor

let the point of the jagged tooth trouble thee, nor the starkness of the

beast, nor the venom spat from the swift throat. Though the force of

his scales spurn thy spears, yet know there is a place under his lowest

belly whither thou mayst plunge the blade; aim at this with thy sword,

and thou shalt probe the snake to his centre. Thence go fearless up to

the hill, drive the mattock, dig and ransack the holes; soon fill thy

pouch with treasure, and bring back to the shore thy craft laden."

Frode believed, and crossed alone to the island, loth to attack the

beast with any stronger escort than that wherewith it was the custom for

champions to attack. When it had drunk water and was repairing to its

cave, its rough and sharp hide spurned the blow of Frode's steel. Also

the darts that he flung against it rebounded idly, foiling the effort

of the thrower. But when the hard back yielded not a whit, he noted the

belly heedfully, and its softness gave entrance to the steel. The beast

tried to retaliate by biting, but only struck the sharp point of its

mouth upon the shield. Then it shot out its flickering tongue again and

again, and gasped away life and venom together.

The money which the King found made him rich; and with this supply he

approached in his fleet the region of the Kurlanders, whose king Dorn,

dreading a perilous war, is said to have made a speech of the following

kind to his soldiers:

"Nobles! Our enemy is a foreigner, begirt with the arms and the wealth

of almost all the West; let us, by endeavouring to defer the battle for

our profit, make him a prey to famine, which is all inward malady; and

he will find it very hard to conquer a peril among his own people. It is

easy to oppose the starving. Hunger will be a better weapon against our

foe than arms; famine will be the sharpest lance we shall hurl at him.

For lack of food nourishes the pestilence that eats away men's strength,

and lack of victual undermines store of weapons. Let this whirl the

spears while we sit still; let this take up the prerogative and the duty

of fighting. Unimperilled, we shall be able to imperil others; we can

drain their blood and lose no drop of ours. One may defeat an enemy by

inaction. Who would not rather fight safely than at a loss? Who would

strive to suffer chastisement when he may contend unhurt? Our success

in arms will be more prosperous if hunger joins battle first. Let hunger

captain us, and so let us take the first chance of conflict. Let it

decide the day in our stead, and let our camp remain free from the stir

of war; if hunger retreat beaten, we must break off idleness. He who is

fresh easily overpowers him who is shaken with languor. The hand that

is flaccid and withered will come fainter to the battle. He whom any

hardship has first wearied, will bring slacker hands to the steel. When

he that is wasted with sickness engages with the sturdy, the victory

hastens. Thus, undamaged ourselves, we shall be able to deal damage to

others."

Having said this, he wasted all the places which he saw would be hard to

protect, distrusting his power to guard them, and he so far forestalled

the ruthlessness of the foe in ravaging his own land, that he left

nothing untouched which could be seized by those who came after. Then he

shut up the greater part of his forces in a town of undoubted strength,

and suffered the enemy to blockade him. Frode, distrusting his power of

attacking this town, commanded several trenches of unwonted depth to

be made within the camp, and the earth to be secretly carried out in

baskets and cast quietly into the river bordering the walls. Then he had

a mass of turf put over the trenches to hide the trap: wishing to cut

off the unwary enemy by tumbling them down headlong, and thinking that

they would be overwhelmed unawares by the slip of the subsiding earth.

Then he feigned a panic, and proceeded to forsake the camp for a short

while. The townsmen fell upon it, missed their footing everywhere,

rolled forward into the pits, and were massacred by him under a shower

of spears.

Thence he travelled and fell in with Trannon, the monarch of the

Ruthenians. Desiring to spy out the strength of his navy, he made a

number of pegs out of sticks, and loaded a skiff with them; and in this

he approached the enemy's fleet by night, and bored the hulls of the

vessels with an auger. And to save them from a sudden influx of

the waves, he plugged up the open holes with the pegs he had before

provided, and by these pieces of wood he made good the damage done by

the auger. But when he thought there were enough holes to drown the

fleet, he took out the plugs, thus giving instant access to the waters,

and then made haste to surround the enemy's fleet with his own. The

Ruthenians were beset with a double peril, and wavered whether they

should first withstand waves or weapons. Fighting to save their ships

from the foe, they were shipwrecked. Within, the peril was more terrible

than without: within, they fell back before the waves, while drawing

the sword on those without. For the unhappy men were assaulted by two

dangers at once; it was doubtful whether the swiftest way of safety

was to swim or to battle to the end; and the fray was broken off at

its hottest by a fresh cause of doom. Two forms of death advanced in a

single onset; two paths of destruction offered united peril: it was hard

to say whether the sword or the sea hurt them more. While one man was

beating off the swords, the waters stole up silently and took him.

Contrariwise, another was struggling with the waves, when the steel came

up and encompassed him. The flowing waters were befouled with the gory

spray. Thus the Ruthenians were conquered, and Frode made his way back

home.

Finding that some envoys, whom he had sent into Russia to levy tribute,

had been horribly murdered through the treachery of the inhabitants,

Frode was stung by the double wrong and besieged closely their town

Rotel. Loth that the intervening river should delay his capture of

the town, he divided the entire mass of the waters by making new and

different streams, thus changing what had been a channel of unknown

depth into passable fords; not ceasing till the speed of the eddy,

slackened by the division of its outlet, rolled its waves onward in

fainter current, and winding along its slender reaches, slowly thinned

and dwindled into a shallow. Thus he prevailed over the river; and the

town, which lacked natural defences, he overthrew, his soldiers breaking

in without resistance. This done, he took his army to the city of

Paltisca. Thinking no force could overcome it, he exchanged war for

guile. He went into a dark and unknown hiding-place, only a very few

being in the secret, and ordered a report of his death to be spread

abroad, so as to inspire the enemy with less fear; his obsequies being

also held, and a barrow raised, to give the tale credit. Even the

soldiers bewailed his supposed death with a mourning which was in the

secret of the trick. This rumour led Vespasins, the king of the city,

to show so faint and feeble a defence, as though the victory was already

his, that the enemy got a chance of breaking in, and slew him as he

sported at his ease.

Frode, when he had taken this town, aspired to the Empire of the East,

and attacked the city of Handwan. This king, warned by Hadding's having

once fired his town, accordingly cleared the tame birds out of all his

houses, to save himself from the peril of like punishment. But Frode

was not at a loss for new trickery. He exchanged garments with a

serving-maid, and feigned himself to be a maiden skilled in fighting;

and having thus laid aside the garb of man and imitated that of woman,

he went to the town, calling himself a deserter. Here he reconnoitred

everything narrowly, and on the next day sent out an attendant with

orders that the army should be up at the walls, promising that he would

see to it that the gates were opened. Thus the sentries were eluded and

the city despoiled while it was buried in sleep; so that it paid for its

heedlessness with destruction, and was more pitiable for its own sloth

than by reason of the valour of the foe. For in warfare nought is found

to be more ruinous than that a man, made foolhardy by ease, should

neglect and slacken his affairs and doze in arrogant self-confidence.

Handwan, seeing that the fortunes of his country were lost and

overthrown, put all his royal wealth on shipboard and drowned it in the

sea, so as to enrich the waves rather than his enemy. Yet it had been

better to forestall the goodwill of his adversaries with gifts of money

than to begrudge the profit of it to the service of mankind. After this,

when Frode sent ambassadors to ask for the hand of his daughter, he

answered, that he must take heed not to be spoiled by his thriving

fortunes, or to turn his triumph into haughtiness; but let him rather

bethink him to spare the conquered, and in this their abject estate to

respect their former bright condition; let him learn to honour their

past fortune in their present pitiable lot. Therefore, said Handwan, he

must mind that he did not rob of his empire the man with whom he sought

alliance, nor bespatter her with the filth of ignobleness whom he

desired to honour with marriage: else he would tarnish the honour of the

union with covetousness. The courtliness of this saying not only won him

his conqueror for son-in-law, but saved the freedom of his realm.

Meantime Thorhild, wife of Hunding, King of the Swedes, possessed with

a boundless hatred for her stepsons Ragnar and Thorwald, and fain to

entangle them in divers perils, at last made them the king's shepherds.

But Swanhwid, daughter of Hadding, wished to arrest by woman's wit the

ruin of natures so noble; and taking her sisters to serve as retinue,

journeyed to Sweden. Seeing the said youths beset with sundry prodigies

while busy watching at night over their flocks, she forbade her sisters,

who desired to dismount, in a poem of the following strain:

"Monsters I behold taking swift leaps and flinging themselves over the

night places. The demon is at war, and the unholy throng, devoted to the

mischievous fray, battles in the mid-thoroughfare. Prodigies of aspect

grim to behold pass by, and suffer no mortal to enter this country.

The ranks galloping in headlong career through the void bid us stay our

advance in this spot; they warn us to turn our rein and hold off from

the accursed fields, they forbid us to approach the country beyond. A

scowling horde of ghosts draws near, and scurries furiously through the

wind, bellowing drearily to the stars. Fauns join Satyrs, and the throng

of Pans mingles with the Spectres and battles with fierce visage. The

Swart ones meet the Woodland Spirits, and the pestilent phantoms strive

to share the path with the Witches. Furies poise themselves on the leap,

and on them huddle the Phantoms, whom Foreboder (Fantua) joined to the

Flatnoses (Satyrs), jostles. The path that the footfarer must tread

brims with horror. It were safer to burden the back of the tall horse."

Thereon Ragnar declared that he was a slave of the king, and gave as

reason of his departure so far from home that, when he had been banished

to the country on his shepherd's business, he had lost the flock of

which he had charge, and despairing to recover it, had chosen rather

to forbear from returning than to incur punishment. Also, loth to say

nothing about the estate of his brother, he further spoke the following

poem:

"Think us men, not monsters; we are slaves who drove our lingering

flocks for pasture through the country. But while we took our pastime in

gentle sports, our flock chanced to stray and went into far-off fields.

And when our hope of finding them, our long quest failed, trouble came

upon the mind of the wretched culprits. And when sure tracks of our kine

were nowhere to be seen, dismal panic filled our guilty hearts. That

is why, dreading the penal stripe of the rod, we thought it doleful

to return to our own roof. We supposed it safer to hold aloof from the

familiar hearth than to bear the hand of punishment. Thus we are fain to

put off the punishment; we loathe going back and our wish is to lie hid

here and escape our master's eye. This will aid us to elude the avenger

of his neglected flock; and this is the one way of escape that remains

safe for us."

Then Swanhwid gazed intently, and surveying his features, which were

very comely, admired them ardently, and said:

"The radiant flashing of thine eyes is eloquent that thou art of kingly

and not of servile stock. Beauty announces blood, and loveliness of soul

glitters in the flash of the eyes. A keen glance betokens lordly birth,

and it is plain that he whom fairness, that sure sign of nobleness,

commends, is of no mean station. The outward alertness of thine eyes

signifies a spirit of radiance within. Face vouches for race; and the

lustre of forefathers is beheld in the brightness of the countenance.

For an aspect so benign and noble could never have issued from base

parentage. The grace of thy blood makes thy brow mantle with a kindred

grace, and the estate of thy birth is reflected in the mirror of thy

countenance. It is no obscure craftsman, therefore, that has finished

the portrait of so choice a chasing. Now therefore turn aside with all

speed, seek constantly to depart out of the road, shun encounters with

monsters, lest ye yield your most gracious bodies to be the prey and

pasture of the vilest hordes."

But Ragnar was seized with great shame for his unsightly attire, which

he thought was the only possible device to disguise his birth. So he

rejoined, "That slaves were not always found to lack manhood; that a

strong hand was often hidden under squalid raiment, and sometimes a

stout arm was muffled trader a dusky cloak; thus the fault of nature

was retrieved by valour, and deficiency in race requited by nobleness of

spirit. He therefore feared the might of no supernatural prowess, save

of the god Thor only, to the greatness of whose force nothing human

or divine could fitly be compared. The hearts of men ought not to

be terrified at phantoms, which were only awful from their ghastly

foulness, and whose semblances, marked by counterfeit ghostliness, were

wont for a moment to borrow materiality from the fluent air. Swanhwid

therefore erred in trying, womanlike, to sap the firm strength of men,

and to melt in unmanly panic that might which knew not defeat."

Swanhwid marvelled at the young man's steadfastness, and cast off the

cloud of mist which overshadowed her, dispelling the darkness which

shrouded her face, till it was clear and cloudless. Then, promising

that she would give him a sword fitted for diver's kinds of battle, she

revealed the marvellous maiden beauty of her lustrous limbs. Thus was

the youth kindled, and she plighted her troth with him, and proffering

the sword, she thus began:

"King, in this sword, which shall expose the monsters to thy blows, take

the first gift of thy betrothed. Show thyself duly deserving hereof; let

hand rival sword, and aspire to add lustre to its weapon. Let the might

of steel strengthen the defenceless point of thy wit, and let spirit

know how to work with hand. Let the bearer match the burden: and that

thy deed may sort with thy blade, let equal weight in each be thine.

What avails the javelin when the breast is weak and faint, and the

quivering hands have dropped the lance? Let steel join soul, and be

both the body's armour! Let the right hand be linked with its hilt in

alliance. These fight famous battles, because they always keep more

force when together; but less when parted. Therefore if it be joy to

thee to win fame by the palm of war, pursue with daring whatsoever is

hard pressed by thy hand."

After thus discoursing long in harmoniously-adjusted strains, she sent

away her retinue, and passed all the night in combat against the foulest

throngs of monsters; and at return of daybreak she perceived fallen all

over the fields diverse shapes of phantoms, and figures extraordinary

to look on; and among them was seen the semblance of Thorhild herself

covered with wounds. All these she piled in a heap and burnt, kindling

a huge pyre, lest the foul stench of the filthy carcases might spread

in pestilent vapour and hurt those who came nigh with its taint of

corruption. This done, she won the throne of Sweden for Ragnar, and

Ragnar for her husband. And though he deemed it uncomely to inaugurate

his first campaign with a wedding, yet, moved by gratitude for the

preservation of his safety, he kept his promise.

Meantime one Ubbe, who had long since wedded Ulfhild the sister of

Frode, trusting in the high birth of his wife, seized the kingdom of

Denmark, which he was managing carelessly as deputy. Frode was thus

forced to quit the wars of the East and fought a great battle in Sweden

with his sister Swanhwid, in which he was beaten. So he got on board a

skiff, and sailed stealthily in a circuit, seeking some way of boring

through the enemy's fleet. When surprised by his sister and asked why

he was rowing silently and following divers meandering courses, he cut

short her inquiry by a similar question; for Swanhwid had also, at the

same time of the night, taken to sailing about alone, and was stealthily

searching out all the ways of approach and retreat through devious and

dangerous windings. So she reminded her brother of the freedom he had

given her long since, and went on to ask him that he should allow her

full enjoyment of the husband she had taken; since, before he started on

the Russian war, he had given her the boon of marrying as she would; and

that he should hold valid after the event what he had himself allowed to

happen. These reasonable entreaties touched Frode, and he made a peace

with Ragnar, and forgave, at his sister's request, the wrongdoing which

Ragnar, seemed to have begun because of her wantonness. They presented

him with a force equal to that which they had caused him to lose:

a handsome gift in which he rejoiced as compensation for so ugly a

reverse.

Ragnar, entering Denmark, captured Ubbe, had him brought before him, and

pardoned him, preferring to visit his ill deserts with grace rather than

chastisement; because the man seemed to have aimed at the crown rather

at his wife's instance than of his own ambition, and to have been the

imitator and not the cause of the wrong. But he took Ulfhild away from

him and forced her to wed his friend Scot, the same man that founded the

Scottish name; esteeming change of wedlock a punishment for her. As she

went away he even escorted her in the royal chariot, requiting evil

with good; for he regarded the kinship of his sister rather than her

disposition, and took more thought for his own good name than of her

iniquity. But the fair deeds of her brother did not make her obstinate

and wonted hatred slacken a whit; she wore the spirit of her new husband

with her design of slaying Frode and mastering the sovereignty of the

Danes. For whatsoever design the mind has resolutely conceived, it is

slow to quit; nor is a sin that is long schemed swept away by the stream

of years. For the temper of later life follows the mind of childhood;

nor do the traces easily fade of vices which have been stamped upon the

character in the impressible age. Finding the ears of her husband deaf,

she diverted her treachery from her brother against her lord, hiring

bravoes to cut his throat while he slept. Scot was told about this by a

waiting-woman, and retired to bed in his cuirass on the night on which

he had heard the deed of murder was to be wrought upon him. Ulfhild

asked him why he had exchanged his wonted ways to wear the garb of

steel; he rejoined that such was just then his fancy. The agents of

the treachery, when they imagined him in a deep sleep, burst in; but

he slipped from his bed and cut them down. The result was, that he

prevented Ulfhild from weaving plots against her brother, and also left

a warning to others to beware of treachery from their wives.

Meantime the design occurred to Frode of a campaign against Friesland;

he was desirous to dazzle the eyes of the West with the glory he had won

in conquering the East. He put out to ocean, and his first contest was

with Witthe, a rover of the Frisians; and in this battle he bade his

crews patiently bear the first brunt of the enemy's charge by merely

opposing their shields, ordering that they should not use their missiles

before they perceived that the shower of the enemy's spears was utterly

silent. This the Frisians hurled as vehemently as the Danes received it

impassively; for Witthe supposed that the long-suffering of Frode was

due to a wish for peace. High rose the blast of the trumpet, and loud

whizzed the javelins everywhere, till at last the heedless Frisians had

not a single lance remaining, and they were conquered, overwhelmed by

the missiles of the Danes. They fled hugging the shore, and were cut to

pieces amid the circuitous windings of the canals. Then Frode explored

the Rhine in his fleet, and laid hands on the farthest parts of Germany.

Then he went back to the ocean, and attacked the Frisian fleet, which

had struck on shoals; and thus he crowned shipwreck with slaughter. Nor

was he content with the destruction of so great an army of his foes, but

assailed Britain, defeated its king, and attacked Melbrik, the Governor

of the Scottish district. Just as he was preparing to fight him, he

heard from a scout that the King of the Britons was at hand, and could

not look to his front and his rear both at once. So he assembled the

soldiers, and ordered that they should abandon their chariots, fling

away all their goods, and scatter everywhere over the fields the gold

which they had about them; for he declared that their one chance was to

squander their treasure; and that, now they were hemmed in, their only

remaining help was to tempt the enemy from combat to covetousness. They

ought cheerfully to spend on so extreme a need the spoil they had gotten

among foreigners; for the enemy would drop it as eagerly, when it was

once gathered, as they would snatch it when they first found it; for it

would be to them more burden than profit.

Then Thorkill, who was a more notable miser and a better orator than

them all, dishelming and leaning on his shield, said:

"O King! Most of us who rate high what we have bought with our

life-blood find thy bidding hard. We take it ill that we should fling

away what we have won with utmost hazard; and men are loth to forsake

what they have purchased at peril of their lives. For it is utter

madness to spurn away like women what our manly hearts and hands have

earned, and enrich the enemy beyond their hopes. What is more odious

than to anticipate the fortune of war by despising the booty which is

ours, and, in terror of an evil that may never come, to quit a good

which is present and assured? Shall we scatter our gold upon the earth,

ere we have set eyes upon the Scots? Those who faint at the thought of

warring when they are out for war, what manner of men are they to be

thought in the battle? Shall we be a derision to our foes, we who were

their terror? Shall we take scorn instead of glory? The Briton will

marvel that he was conquered by men whom he sees fear is enough to

conquer. We struck them before with panic; shall we be panic-stricken by

them? We scorned them when before us; shall we dread them when they are

not here? When will our bravery win the treasure which our cowardice

rejects? Shall we shirk the fight, in scorn of the money which we fought

to win, and enrich those whom we should rightly have impoverished? What

deed more despicable can we do than to squander gold on those whom

we should smite with steel? Panic must never rob us of the spoils of

valour; and only war must make us quit what in warfare we have won.

Let us sell our plunder at the price at which we bought it; let the

purchase-money be weighed out in steel. It is better to die a noble

death, than to molder away too much in love with the light life. In a

fleeting instant of time life forsakes us, but shame pursues us past the

grave. Further, if we cast away this gold, the greater the enemy thinks

our fear, the hotter will be his chase. Besides, whichever the issue of

the day, the gold is not hateful to us. Conquerors, we shall triumph in

the treasure which now we bear; conquered, we shall leave it to pay our

burying."

So spoke the old man; but the soldiers regarded the advice of their king

rather than of their comrade, and thought more of the former than of

the latter counsel. So each of them eagerly drew his wealth, whatever

he had, from his pouch; they unloaded their ponies of the various goods

they were carrying; and having thus cleared their money-bags, girded on

their arms more deftly. They went on, and the Britons came up, but broke

away after the plunder which lay spread out before them. Their king,

when he beheld them too greedily busied with scrambling for the

treasure, bade them "take heed not to weary with a load of riches those

hands which were meant for battle, since they ought to know that a

victory must be culled ere it is counted. Therefore let them scorn the

gold and give chase to the possessors of the gold; let them admire the

lustre, not of lucre, but of conquest; remembering, that a trophy

gave more reward than gain. Courage was worth more than dross, if they

measured aright the quality of both; for the one furnished outward

adorning, but the other enhanced both outward and inward grace.

Therefore they must keep their eyes far from the sight of money, and

their soul from covetousness, and devote it to the pursuits of war.

Further, they should know that the plunder had been abandoned by the

enemy of set purpose, and that the gold had been scattered rather to

betray them than to profit them. Moreover, the honest lustre of the

silver was only a bait on the barb of secret guile. It was not thought

to be that they, who had first forced the Britons to fly, would lightly

fly themselves. Besides, nothing was more shameful than riches which

betrayed into captivity the plunderer whom they were supposed to enrich.

For the Danes thought that the men to whom they pretended to have

offered riches ought to be punished with sword and slaughter. Let them

therefore feel that they were only giving the enemy a weapon if they

seized what he had scattered. For if they were caught by the look of the

treasure that had been exposed, they must lose, not only that, but

any of their own money that might remain. What could it profit them to

gather what they must straightway disgorge? But if they refuse to abase

themselves before money, they would doubtless abase the foe. Thus it was

better for them to stand erect in valour than be grovelling in greed;

with their souls not sinking into covetousness, but up and doing for

renown. In the battle they would have to use not gold but swords."

As the king ended, a British knight, shewing them all his lapful of

gold, said:

"O King! From thy speech can be gathered two feelings; and one of them

witnesses to thy cowardice and the other to thy ill will: inasmuch as

thou forbiddest us the use of the wealth because of the enemy, and also

thinkest it better that we should serve thee needy than rich. What is

more odious than such a wish? What more senseless than such a counsel?

We recognise these as the treasures of our own homes, and having done

so, shall we falter to pick them up? We were on our way to regain them

by fighting, we were zealous to win them back by our blood: shall we

shun them when they are restored unasked? Shall we hesitate to claim our

own? Which is the greater coward, he who squanders his winnings, or

he who is fearful to pick up what is squandered? Look how chance has

restored what compulsion took! These are, not spoils from the enemy, but

from ourselves; the Dane took gold from Britain, he brought none. Beaten

and loth we lost it; it comes back for nothing, and shall we run away

from it? Such a gift of fortune it were a shame to take in an unworthy

spirit. For what were madder than to spurn wealth that is set openly

before us, and to desire it when it is shut up and kept from us? Shall

we squeamishly yield what is set under our eyes, and clutch at it when

it vanishes? Shall we seek distant and foreign treasure, refraining from

what is made public property? If we disown what is ours, when shall we

despoil the goods of others? No anger of heaven can I experience which

can force me to unload of its lawful burden the lap which is filled with

my father's and my grandsire's gold. I know the wantonness of the Danes:

never would they have left jars full of wine had not fear forced them

to flee. They would rather have sacrificed their life than their liquor.

This passion we share with them, and herein we are like them. Grant that

their flight is feigned; yet they will light upon the Scots ere they

can come back. This gold shall never rust in the country, to be trodden

underfoot of swine or brutes: it will better serve the use of men.

Besides, if we plunder the spoil of the army that prevailed over us, we

transfer the luck of the conqueror to ourselves. For what surer omen of

triumph could be got, than to bear off the booty before the battle, and

to capture ere the fray the camp which the enemy have forsaken? Better

conquer by fear than by steel."

The knight had scarce ended, when behold; the hands of all were loosed

upon the booty and everywhere plucked up the shining treasure. There you

might have marvelled at their disposition of filthy greed, and watched

a portentous spectacle of avarice. You could have seen gold and grass

clutched up together; the birth of domestic discord; fellow-countrymen

in deadly combat, heedless of the foe; neglect of the bonds of

comradeship and of reverence for ties; greed the object of all minds,

and friendship of none.

Meantime Frode traversed in a great march the forest which separates

Scotland and Britain, and bade his soldiers arm. When the Scots beheld

his line, and saw that they had only a supply of light javelins, while

the Danes were furnished with a more excellent style of armour, they

forestalled the battle by flight. Frode pursued them but a little way,

fearing a sally of the British, and on returning met Scot, the husband

of Ulfhild, with a great army; he had been brought from the utmost ends

of Scotland by the desire of aiding the Danes. Scot entreated him to

abandon the pursuit of the Scottish and turn back into Britain. So he

eagerly regained the plunder which he had cunningly sacrificed; and got

back his wealth with the greater ease, that he had so tranquilly let

it go. Then did the British repent of their burden and pay for their

covetousness with their blood. They were sorry to have clutched at greed

with insatiate arms, and ashamed to have hearkened to their own avarice

rather than to the counsel of their king.

Then Frode attacked London, the most populous city of Britain; but the

strength of its walls gave him no chance of capturing it. Therefore he

reigned to be dead, and his guile strengthened him. For Daleman, the

governor of London, on hearing the false news of his death, accepted the

surrender of the Danes, offered them a native general, and suffered them

to enter the town, that they might choose him out of a great throng.

They feigned to be making a careful choice, but beset Daleman in a night

surprise and slew him.

When he had done these things, and gone back to his own land, one Skat

entertained him at a banquet, desirous to mingle his toilsome warfare

with joyous licence. Frode was lying in his house, in royal fashion,

upon cushions of cloth of gold, and a certain Hunding challenged him to

fight. Then, though he had bent his mind to the joys of wassail, he had

more delight in the prospect of a fray than in the presence of a feast,

and wound up the supper with a duel and the duel with a triumph. In the

combat he received a dangerous wound; but a taunt of Hakon the champion

again roused him, and, slaying his challenger, he took vengeance for

the disturbance of his rest. Two of his chamber-servants were openly

convicted of treachery, and he had them tied to vast stones and

drowned in the sea; thus chastising the weighty guilt of their souls by

fastening boulders to their bodies. Some relate that Ulfhild gave him a

coat which no steel could pierce, so that when he wore it no missile's

point could hurt him. Nor must I omit how Frode was wont to sprinkle his

food with brayed and pounded atoms of gold, as a resource against the

usual snares of poisoners. While he was attacking Ragnar, the King of

Sweden, who had been falsely accused of treachery, he perished, not by

the spears, but stifled in the weight of his arms and by the heat of his

own body.

Frode left three sons, Halfdan, Ro, and Skat, who were equal in valour,

and were seized with an equal desire for the throne. All thought of

sway, none was constrained by brotherly regard: for love of others

forsaketh him who is eaten up with love of self, nor can any man take

thought at once for his own advancement and for his friendship with

others. Halfdan, the eldest son, disgraced his birth with the sin of

slaying his brethren, winning his kingdom by the murder of his kin;

and, to complete his display of cruelty, arrested their adherents, first

confining them in bonds, and presently hanging them. The most notable

thing in the fortunes of Halfdan was this, that though he devoted every

instant of his life to the practice of cruel deeds, yet he died of old

age, and not by the steel.

Halfdan's sons were Ro and Helge. Ro is said to have been the founder of

Roskild, which was later increased in population and enhanced in power

by Sweyn, who was famous for the surname Forkbeard. Ro was short and

spare, while Helge was rather tall of stature. Dividing the realm with

his brother, Helge was allotted the domain of the sea; and attacking

Skalk, the King of Sklavia, with his naval force, he slew him. Having

reduced Sklavia into a province, he scoured the various arms of the sea

in a wandering voyage. Savage of temper as Helge was, his cruelty was

not greater than his lust. For he was so immoderately prone to

love, that it was doubtful whether the heat of his tyranny or of his

concupiscence was the greater. In Thorey he ravished the maiden Thora,

who bore a daughter, to whom she afterwards gave the name of Urse. Then

he conquered in battle, before the town of Stad, the son of Syrik, King

of Saxony, Hunding, whom he challenged, attacked, and slew in duel. For

this he was called Hunding's-Bane, and by that name gained glory of his

victory. He took Jutland out of the power of the Saxons, and entrusted

its management to his generals, Heske, Eyr, and Ler. In Saxony he

enacted that the slaughter of a freedman and of a noble should be

visited with the same punishment; as though he wished it to be clearly

known that all the households of the Teutons were held in equal

slavery, and that the freedom of all was tainted and savoured equally of

dishonour.

Then Helge went freebooting to Thorey. But Thora had not ceased to

bewail her lost virginity, and planned a shameful device in abominable

vengeance for her rape. For she deliberately sent down to the beach

her daughter, who was of marriageable age, and prompted her father to

deflower her. And though she yielded her body to the treacherous lures

of delight, yet she must not be thought to have abjured her integrity

of soul, inasmuch as her fault had a ready excuse by virtue of her

ignorance. Insensate mother, who allowed the forfeiture of her child's

chastity in order to avenge her own; caring nought for the purity of her

own blood, so she might stain with incest the man who had cost her her

own maidenhood at first! Infamous-hearted woman, who, to punish her

defiler, measured out as it were a second defilement to herself,

whereas she clearly by the selfsame act rather swelled than lessened the

transgression! Surely, by the very act wherewith she thought to reach

her revenge, she accumulated guilt; she added a sin in trying to remove

a crime: she played the stepdame to her own offspring, not sparing her

daughter abomination in order to atone for her own disgrace. Doubtless

her soul was brimming over with shamelessness, since she swerved so far

from shamefastness, as without a blush to seek solace for her wrong in

her daughter's infamy. A great crime, with but one atonement; namely,

that the guilt of this intercourse was wiped away by a fortunate

progeny, its fruits being as delightful as its repute was evil.

ROLF, the son of Urse, retrieved the shame of his birth by signal deeds

of valour; and their exceeding lustre is honoured with bright laudation

by the memory of all succeeding time. For lamentation sometimes ends in

laughter, and foul beginnings pass to fair issues. So that the father's

fault, though criminal, was fortunate, being afterwards atoned for by a

son of such marvellous splendour.

Meantime Ragnar died in Sweden; and Swanhwid his wife passed away soon

after of a malady which she had taken from her sorrow, following in

death the husband from whom she had not endured severance in life. For

it often happens that some people desire to follow out of life those

whom they loved exceedingly when alive. Their son Hothbrodd succeeded

them. Fain to extend his empire, he warred upon the East, and after a

huge massacre of many peoples begat two sons, Athisl and Hother, and

appointed as their tutor a certain Gewar, who was bound to him by great

services. Not content with conquering the East, he assailed Denmark,

challenged its king, Ro, in three battles, and slew him. Helge, when

he heard this, shut up his son Rolf in Leire, wishing, however he might

have managed his own fortunes, to see to the safety of his heir. When

Hothbrodd sent in governors, wanting to free his country from alien

rule, he posted his people about the city and prevailed and slew them.

Also he annihilated Hothbrodd himself and all his forces in a naval

battle; so avenging fully the wrongs of his country as well as of his

brother. Hence he who had before won a nickname for slaying Hunding, now

bore a surname for the slaughter of Hothbrodd. Besides, as if the

Swedes had not been enough stricken in the battles, he punished them by

stipulating for most humiliating terms; providing by law that no wrong

done to any of them should receive amends according to the form of legal

covenants. After these deeds, ashamed of his former infamy, he hated his

country and his home, went back to the East, and there died. Some think

that he was affected by the disgrace which was cast in his teeth, and

did himself to death by falling upon his drawn sword.

He was succeeded by his son Rolf, who was comely with every gift of mind

and body, and graced his mighty stature with as high a courage. In his

time Sweden was subject to the sway of the Danes; wherefore Athisl, the

son of Hothbrodd, in pursuit of a crafty design to set his country free,

contrived to marry Rolf's mother, Urse, thinking that his kinship by

marriage would plead for him, and enable him to prompt his stepson more

effectually to relax the tribute; and fortune prospered his wishes. But

Athisl had from his boyhood been imbued with a hatred of liberality, and

was so grasping of money, that he accounted it a disgrace to be called

openhanded. Urse, seeing him so steeped in filthy covetousness, desired

to be rid of him; but, thinking that she must act by cunning, veiled the

shape of her guile with a marvellous skill. Feigning to be unmotherly,

she spurred on her husband to grasp his freedom, and urged and tempted

him to insurrection; causing her son to be summoned to Sweden with a

promise of vast gifts. For she thought that she would best gain her

desire if, as soon as her son had got his stepfather's gold, she could

snatch up the royal treasures and flee, robbing her husband of bed

and money to hoot. For she fancied that the best way to chastise his

covetousness would be to steal away his wealth. This deep guilefulness

was hard to detect, from such recesses of cunning did it spring; because

she dissembled her longing for a change of wedlock under a show of

aspiration for freedom. Blind-witted husband, fancying the mother

kindled against the life of the son, never seeing that it was rather his

own ruin being compassed! Doltish lord, blind to the obstinate

scheming of his wife, who, out of pretended hatred of her son, devised

opportunity for change of wedlock! Though the heart of woman should

never be trusted, he believed in a woman all the more insensately,

because he supposed her faithful to himself and treacherous to her son.

Accordingly, Rolf, tempted by the greatness of the gifts, chanced to

enter the house of Athisl. He was not recognised by his mother owing to

his long absence and the cessation of their common life; so in jest he

first asked for some victual to appease his hunger. She advised him

to ask the king for a luncheon. Then he thrust out a torn piece of

his coat, and begged of her the service of sewing it up. Finding his

mother's ears shut to him, he observed, "That it was hard to discover a

friendship that was firm and true, when a mother refused her son a meal,

and a sister refused a brother the help of her needle." Thus he punished

his mother's error, and made her blush deep for her refusal of kindness.

Athisl, when he saw him reclining close to his mother at the banquet,

taunted them both with wantonness, declaring that it was an impure

intercourse of brother and sister. Rolf repelled the charge against his

honour by an appeal to the closest of natural bonds, and answered, that

it was honourable for a son to embrace a beloved mother. Also, when

the feasters asked him what kind of courage he set above all others, he

named Endurance. When they also asked Athisl, what was the virtue which

above all he desired most devotedly, he declared, Generosity. Proofs

were therefore demanded of bravery on the one hand and munificence on

the other, and Rolf was asked to give an evidence of courage first. He

was placed to the fire, and defending with his target the side that was

most hotly assailed, had only the firmness of his endurance to fortify

the other, which had no defence. How dexterous, to borrow from his

shield protection to assuage the heat, and to guard his body, which was

exposed to the flames, with that which sometime sheltered it amid the

hurtling spears! But the glow was hotter than the fire of spears; as

though it could not storm the side that was entrenched by the

shield, yet it assaulted the flank that lacked its protection. But a

waiting-maid who happened to be standing near the hearth, saw that he

was being roasted by the unbearable heat upon his ribs; so taking the

stopper out of a cask, she spilt the liquid and quenched the flame, and

by the timely kindness of the shower checked in its career the torturing

blaze. Rolf was lauded for supreme endurance, and then came the request

for Athisl's gifts. And they say that he showered treasures on his

stepson, and at last, in order to crown the gift, bestowed on him an

enormously heavy necklace.

Now Urse, who had watched her chance for the deed of guile, on the third

day of the banquet, without her husband ever dreaming of such a thing,

put all the king's wealth into carriages, and going out stealthily,

stole away from her own dwelling and fled in the glimmering twilight,

departing with her son. Thrilled with fear of her husband's pursuit, and

utterly despairing of escape beyond, she begged and bade her companions

to cast away the money, declaring that they must lose either life or

riches; the short and only path to safety lay in flinging away the

treasure, nor could any aid to escape be found save in the loss of their

possessions. Therefore, said she, they must follow the example of the

manner in which Frode was said to have saved himself among the Britons.

She added, that it was not paying a great price to lay down the Swedes'

own goods for them to regain; if only they could themselves gain a start

in flight, by the very device which would check the others in their

pursuit, and if they seemed not so much to abandon their own possessions

as to restore those of other men. Not a moment was lost; in order to

make the flight swifter, they did the bidding of the queen. The gold is

cleared from their purses; the riches are left for the enemy to seize.

Some declare that Urse kept back the money, and strewed the tracks of

her flight with copper that was gilt over. For it was thought credible

that a woman who could scheme such great deeds could also have painted

with lying lustre the metal that was meant to be lost, mimicking riches

of true worth with the sheen of spurious gold. So Athisl, when he saw

the necklace that he had given to Rolf left among the other golden

ornaments, gazed fixedly upon the dearest treasure of his avarice,

and, in order to pick up the plunder, glued his knees to the earth and

deigned to stoop his royalty unto greed. Rolf, seeing him lie abjectly

on his face in order to gather up the money, smiled at the sight of a

man prostrated by his own gifts, just as if he were seeking covetously

to regain what he had craftily yielded up. The Swedes were content

with their booty, and Rolf quickly retired to his ships, and managed to

escape by rowing violently.

Now they relate that Rolf used with ready generosity to grant at the

first entreaty whatsoever he was begged to bestow, and never put off the

request till the second time of asking. For he preferred to forestall

repeated supplication by speedy liberality, rather than mar his kindness

by delay. This habit brought him a great concourse of champions; valour

having commonly either rewards for its food or glory for its spur.

At this time, a certain Agnar, son of Ingild, being about to wed Rute,

the sister of Rolf, celebrated his bridal with a great banquet. The

champions were rioting at this banquet with every sort of wantonness,

and flinging from all over the room knobbed bones at a certain Hjalte;

but it chanced that his messmate, named Bjarke, received a violent blow

on the head through the ill aim of the thrower; at whom, stung both by

the pain and the jeering, he sent the bone back, so that he twisted the

front of his head to the back, and wrung the back of it to where the

front had been; punishing the wryness of the man's temper by turning his

face sidelong. This deed moderated their wanton and injurious jests, and

drove the champions to quit the place. The bridegroom, nettled at this

affront to the banquet, resolved to fight Bjarke, in order to seek

vengeance by means of a duel for the interruption of their mirth. At the

outset of the duel there was a long dispute, which of them ought to have

the chance of striking first. For of old, in the ordering of combats,

men did not try to exchange their blows thick and fast; but there was

a pause, and at the same time a definite succession in striking: the

contest being carried on with few strokes, but those terrible, so that

honour was paid more to the mightiness than to the number of the blows.

Agnar, being of higher rank, was put first; and the blow which he dealt

is said to have been so furious, that he cut through the front of the

helmet, wounded the skin on the scalp, and had to let go his sword,

which became locked in the vizor-holes. Then Bjarke, who was to deal

the return-stroke, leaned his foot against a stock, in order to give the

freer poise to his steel, and passed his fine-edged blade through the

midst of Agnar's body. Some declare that Agnar, in supreme suppression

of his pain, gave up the ghost with his lips relaxed into a smile. The

champions passionately sought to avenge him, but were visited by Bjarke

with like destruction; for he used a sword of wonderful sharpness and

unusual length which he called Lovi. While he was triumphing in these

deeds of prowess, a beast of the forest furnished him fresh laurels. For

he met a huge bear in a thicket, and slew it with a javelin; and then

bade his companion Hjalte put his lips to the beast and drink the blood

that came out, that he might be the stronger afterwards. For it was

believed that a draught of this sort caused an increase of bodily

strength. By these valorous achievements he became intimate with the

most illustrious nobles, and even, became a favourite of the king; took

to wife his sister Rute, and had the bride of the conquered as the prize

of the conquest. When Rolf was harried by Athisl he avenged himself on

him in battle and overthrew Athisl in war. Then Rolf gave his sister

Skulde in marriage to a youth of keen wit, called Hiartuar, and made him

governor of Sweden, ordaining a yearly tax; wishing to soften the loss

of freedom to him by the favour of an alliance with himself.

Here let me put into my work a thing that it is mirthful to record. A

youth named Wigg, scanning with attentive eye the bodily size of Rolf,

and smitten with great wonder thereat, proceeded to inquire in jest

who was that "Krage" whom Nature in her beauty had endowed with such

towering stature? Meaning humorously to banter his uncommon tallness.

For "Krage" in the Danish tongue means a tree-trunk, whose branches are

pollarded, and whose summit is climbed in such wise that the foot

uses the lopped timbers as supports, as if leaning on a ladder, and,

gradually advancing to the higher parts, finds the shortest way to the

top. Rolf accepted this random word as though it were a name of honour

for him, and rewarded the wit of the saying with a heavy bracelet. Then

Wigg, thrusting out his right arm decked with the bracelet, put his left

behind his back in affected shame, and walked with a ludicrous gait,

declaring that he, whose lot had so long been poverty-stricken, was glad

of a scanty gift. When he was asked why he was behaving so, he said

that the arm which lacked ornament and had no splendour to boast of

was mantling with the modest blush of poverty to behold the other. The

ingenuity of this saying won him a present to match the first. For

Rolf made him bring out to view, like the other, the hand which he was

hiding. Nor was Wigg heedless to repay the kindness; for he promised,

uttering a strict vow, that, if it befell Rolf to perish by the sword,

he would himself take vengeance on his slayers. Nor should it be omitted

that in old time nobles who were entering. The court used to devote to

their rulers the first-fruits of their service by vowing some mighty

exploit; thus bravely inaugurating their first campaign.

Meantime, Skulde was stung with humiliation at the payment of the

tribute, and bent her mind to devise deeds of horror. Taunting her

husband with his ignominious estate, she urged and egged him to break

off his servitude, induced him to weave plots against Rolf, and filled

his mind with the most abominable plans of disloyalty, declaring that

everyone owed more to their freedom than to kinship. Accordingly, she

ordered huge piles of arms to be muffled up under divers coverings,

to be carried by Hiartuar into Denmark, as if they were tribute: these

would furnish a store wherewith to slay the king by night. So the

vessels were loaded with the mass of pretended tribute, and they

proceeded to Leire, a town which Rolf had built and adorned with the

richest treasure of his realm, and which, being a royal foundation and

a royal seat, surpassed in importance all the cities of the neighbouring

districts. The king welcomed the coming of Hiartuar with a splendid

banquet, and drank very deep, while his guests, contrary to their

custom, shunned immoderate tippling. So, while all the others were

sleeping soundly, the Swedes, who had been kept from their ordinary rest

by their eagerness on their guilty purpose, began furtively to slip down

from their sleeping-rooms. Straightway uncovering the hidden heap of

weapons, each girded on his arms silently and then went to the palace.

Bursting into its recesses, they drew their swords upon the sleeping

figures. Many awoke; but, invaded as much by the sudden and dreadful

carnage as by the drowsiness of sleep, they faltered in their

resistance; for the night misled them and made it doubtful whether those

they met were friends or foes. Hjalte, who was foremost in tried bravery

among the nobles of the king, chanced to have gone out in the dead of

that same night into the country and given himself to the embraces of a

harlot. But when his torpid hearing caught from afar the rising din of

battle, preferring valour to wantonness, he chose rather to seek the

deadly perils of the War-god than to yield to the soft allurements of

Love. What a love for his king, must we suppose, burned in this warrior!

For he might have excused his absence by feigning not to have known; but

he thought it better to expose his life to manifest danger than save it

for pleasure. As he went away, his mistress asked him how aged a man

she ought to marry if she were to lose him? Then Hjalte bade her come

closer, as though he would speak to her more privately; and, resenting

that she needed a successor to his love, he cut off her nose and made

her unsightly, punishing the utterance of that wanton question with a

shameful wound, and thinking that the lecherousness of her soul ought to

be cooled by outrage to her face. When he had done this, he said he left

her choice free in the matter she had asked about. Then he went quickly

back to the town and plunged into the densest of the fray, mowing down

the opposing ranks as he gave blow for blow. Passing the sleeping-room

of Bjarke, who was still slumbering, he bade him wake up, addressing him

as follows:

"Let him awake speedily, whoso showeth himself by service or avoweth

himself in mere loyalty, a friend of the king! Let the princes shake off

slumber, let shameless lethargy begone; let their spirits awake and warm

to the work; each man's own right hand shall either give him to glory,

or steep him in sluggard shame; and this night shall be either end or

vengeance of our woes.

"I do not now bid ye learn the sports of maidens, nor stroke soft

cheeks, nor give sweet kisses to the bride and press the slender

breasts, nor desire the flowing wine and chafe the soft thigh and cast

eyes upon snowy arms. I call you out to the sterner fray of War. We need

the battle, and not light love; nerveless languor has no business here:

our need calls for battles. Whoso cherishes friendship for the king,

let him take up arms. Prowess in war is the readiest appraiser of men's

spirits. Therefore let warriors have no fearfulness and the brave no

fickleness: let pleasure quit their soul and yield place to arms. Glory

is now appointed for wages; each can be the arbiter of his own renown,

and shine by his own right hand. Let nought here be tricked out with

wantonness: let all be full of sternness, and learn how to rid them of

this calamity. He who covets the honours or prizes of glory must not be

faint with craven fear, but go forth to meet the brave, nor whiten at

the cold steel."

At this utterance, Bjarke, awakened, roused up his chamber-page Skalk

speedily, and addressed him as follows:

"Up, lad, and fan the fire with constant blowing; sweep the hearth clear

of wood, and scatter the fine ashes. Strike out sparks from the fire,

rouse the fallen embers, draw out the smothered blaze. Force the

slackening hearth to yield light by kindling the coals to a red glow

with a burning log. It will do me good to stretch out my fingers when

the fire is brought nigh. Surely he that takes heed for his friend

should have warm hands, and utterly drive away the blue and hurtful

chill."

Hjalte said again: "Sweet is it to repay the gifts received from our

lord, to grip the swords, and devote the steel to glory. Behold, each

man's courage tells him loyally to follow a king of such deserts, and to

guard our captain with fitting earnestness. Let the Teuton swords, the

helmets, the shining armlets, the mail-coats that reach the heel, which

Rolf of old bestowed upon his men, let these sharpen our mindful hearts

to the fray. The time requires, and it is just, that in time of war we

should earn whatsoever we have gotten in the deep idleness of peace,

that we should not think more of joyous courses than of sorrowful

fortunes, or always prefer prosperity to hardship. Being noble, let us

with even soul accept either lot, nor let fortune sway our behaviour,

for it beseems us to receive equably difficult and delightsome days; let

us pass the years of sorrow with the same countenance wherewith we took

the years of joy. Let us do with brave hearts all the things that in our

cups we boasted with sodden lips; let us keep the vows which we swore

by highest Jove and the mighty gods. My master is the greatest of the

Danes: let each man, as he is valorous, stand by him; far, far hence be

all cowards! We need a brave and steadfast man, not one that turns his

back on a dangerous pass, or dreads the grim preparations for battle.

Often a general's greatest valour depends on his soldiery, for the

chief enters the fray all the more at ease that a better array of

nobles throngs him round. Let the thane catch up his arms with fighting

fingers, setting his right hand on the hilt and holding fast the shield:

let him charge upon the foes, nor pale at any strokes. Let none offer

himself to be smitten by the enemy behind, let none receive the swords

in his back: let the battling breast ever front the blow. `Eagles fight

brow foremost', and with swift gaping beaks speed onward in the front:

be ye like that bird in mien, shrinking from no stroke, but with body

facing the foe.

"See how the enemy, furious and confident overduly, his limbs defended

by the steel, and his face with a gilded helmet, charges the thick

of the battle-wedges, as though sure of victory, fearless of rout and

invincible by any endeavour. Ah, misery! Swedish assurance spurns the

Danes. Behold, the Goths with savage eyes and grim aspect advance with

crested helms and clanging spears: wreaking heavy slaughter in our

blood, they wield their swords and their battle-axes hone-sharpened.

"Why name thee, Hiartuar, whom Skulde hath filled with guilty purpose,

and hath suffered thus to harden in sin? Why sing of thee, villain, who

hast caused our peril, betrayer of a noble king? Furious lust of sway

hath driven thee to attempt an abomination, and, stung with frenzy, to

screen thyself behind thy wife's everlasting guilt. What error hath

made thee to hurt the Danes and thy lord, and hurled thee into such foul

crime as this? Whence entered thy heart the treason framed with such

careful guile?

"Why do I linger? Now we have swallowed our last morsel. Our king

perishes, and utter doom overtakes our hapless city. Our last dawn has

risen, unless perchance there be one here so soft that he fears to offer

himself to the blows, or so unwarlike that he dares not avenge his lord,

and disowns all honours worthy of his valour.

"Thou, Ruta, rise and put forth thy snow-white head, come forth from

thy hiding into the battle. The carnage that is being done without calls

thee. By now the council-chamber is shaken with warfare, and the gates

creak with the dreadful fray. Steel rends the mail-coats, the woven mesh

is torn apart, and the midriff gives under the rain of spears. By now

the huge axes have hacked small the shield of the king; by now the long

swords clash, and the battle-axe clatters its blows upon the shoulders

of men, and cleaves their breasts. Why are your hearts afraid? Why is

your sword faint and blunted? The gate is cleared of our people, and is

filled with the press of the strangers."

And when Hjalte had wrought very great carnage and stained the battle

with blood, he stumbled for the third time on Bjarke's berth, and

thinking he desired to keep quiet because he was afraid, made trial of

him with such taunts at his cowardice as these:

"Bjarke, why art thou absent? Doth deep sleep hold thee? I prithee, what

makes thee tarry? Come out, or the fire will overcome thee. Ho! Choose

the better way, charge with me! Bears may be kept off with fire; let

us spread fire in the recesses, and let the blaze attack the door-posts

first. Let the firebrand fall upon the bedchamber, let the falling roof

offer fuel for the flames and serve to feed the fire. It is right to

scatter conflagration on the doomed gates. But let us who honour our

king with better loyalty form the firm battle-wedges, and, having

measured the phalanx in safe rows, go forth in the way the king taught

us: our king, who laid low Rorik, the son of Bok the covetous, and

wrapped the coward in death. He was rich in wealth, but in enjoyment

poor, stronger in gain than bravery; and thinking gold better than

warfare, he set lucre above all things, and ingloriously accumulated

piles of treasure, scorning the service of noble friends. And when he

was attacked by the navy of Rolf, he bade his servants take the gold

from the chests and spread it out in front of the city gates, making

ready bribes rather than battle, because he knew not the soldier, and

thought that the foe should be attempted with gifts and not with arms:

as though he could fight with wealth alone, and prolong the war by

using, not men, but wares! So he undid the heavy coffers and the rich

chests; he brought forth the polished bracelets and the heavy caskets;

they only fed his destruction. Rich in treasure, poor in warriors, he

left his foes to take away the prizes which he forebore to give to the

friends of his own land. He who once shrank to give little rings of his

own will, now unwillingly squandered his masses of wealth, rifling his

hoarded heap. But our king in his wisdom spurned him and the gifts he

proffered, and took from him life and goods at once; nor was his foe

profited by the useless wealth which he had greedily heaped up through

long years. But Rolf the righteous assailed him, slew him, and captured

his vast wealth, and shared among worthy friends what the hand of

avarice had piled up in all those years; and, bursting into the camp

which was wealthy but not brave, gave his friends a lordly booty without

bloodshed. Nothing was so fair to him that he would not lavish it, or so

dear that he would not give it to his friends, for he used treasure like

ashes, and measured his years by glory and not by gain. Whence it is

plain that the king who hath died nobly lived also most nobly, that the

hour of his doom is beautiful, and that he graced the years of his life

with manliness. For while he lived his glowing valour prevailed over all

things, and he was allotted might worthy of his lofty stature. He was

as swift to war as a torrent tearing down to sea, and as speedy to begin

battle as a stag is to fly with cleft foot upon his fleet way.

"See now, among the pools dripping with human blood, the teeth struck

out of the slain are carried on by the full torrent of gore, and are

polished on the rough sands. Dashed on the slime they glitter, and the

torrent of blood bears along splintered bones and flows above lopped

limbs. The blood of the Danes is wet, and the gory flow stagnates far

around, and the stream pressed out of the steaming veins rolls back the

scattered bodies. Tirelessly against the Danes advances Hiartuar, lover

of battle, and challenges the fighters with outstretched spear. Yet

here, amid the dangers and dooms of war, I see Frode's grandson smiling

joyously, who once sowed the fields of Fyriswald with gold. Let us also

be exalted with an honourable show of joy, following in death the doom

of our noble father. Be we therefore cheery in voice and bold in daring;

for it is right to spurn all fear with words of courage, and to meet our

death in deeds of glory. Let fear quit heart and face; in both let us

avow our dauntless endeavours, that no sign anywhere may show us to

betray faltering fear. Let our drawn sword measure the weight of our

service. Fame follows us in death, and glory shall outlive our crumbling

ashes! And that which perfect valour hath achieved during its span shall

not fade for ever and ever. What want we with closed floors? Why doth

the locked bolt close the folding-gates? For it is now the third cry,

Bjarke, that calls thee, and bids thee come forth from the barred room."

Bjarke rejoined: "Warlike Hjalte, why dost thou call me so loud? I am

the son-in-law of Rolf. He who boasts loud and with big words challenges

other men to battle, is bound to be venturous and act up to his words,

that his deed may avouch his vaunt. But stay till I am armed and have

girded on the dread attire of war.

"And now I tie my sword to my side, now first I get my body guarded with

mail-coat and headpiece, the helm keeping my brows and the stout

iron shrouding my breast. None shrinks more than I from being burnt a

prisoner inside, and made a pyre together with my own house: though an

island brought me forth, and though the land of my birth be bounded, I

shall hold it a debt to repay to the king the twelve kindreds which he

added to my honours. Hearken, warriors! Let none robe in mail his body

that shall perish; let him last of all draw tight the woven steel; let

the shields go behind the back; let us fight with bared breasts,

and load all your arms with gold. Let your right hands receive the

bracelets, that they may swing their blows the more heavily and plant

the grievous wound. Let none fall back! Let each zealously strive to

meet the swords of the enemy and the threatening spears, that we may

avenge our beloved master. Happy beyond all things is he who can mete

out revenge for such a crime, and with righteous steel punish the guilt

of treacheries.

"Lo, methinks I surely pierced a wild stag with the Teutonic sword which

is called Snyrtir: from which I won the name of Warrior, when I felled

Agnar, son of Ingild, and brought the trophy home. He shattered and

broke with the bite the sword Hoding which smote upon my head, and would

have dealt worse wounds if the edge of his blade had held out better.

In return I clove asunder his left arm and part of his left side and

his right foot, and the piercing steel ran down his limbs and smote deep

into his ribs. By Hercules! No man ever seemed to me stronger than he.

For he sank down half-conscious, and, leaning on his elbow, welcomed

death with a smile, and spurned destruction with a laugh, and passed

rejoicing in the world of Elysium. Mighty was the man's courage, which

knew how with one laugh to cover his death-hour, and with a joyous face

to suppress utter anguish of mind and body!

"Now also with the same blade I searched the heart of one sprung from

an illustrious line, and plunged the steel deep in his breast. He was a

king's son, of illustrious ancestry, of a noble nature, and shone with

the brightness of youth. The mailed metal could not avail him, nor his

sword, nor the smooth target-boss; so keen was the force of my steel, it

knew not how to be stayed by obstacles.

"Where, then, are the captains of the Goths, and the soldiery of

Hiartuar? Let them come, and pay for their might with their life-blood.

Who can cast, who whirl the lance, save scions of kings? War springs

from the nobly born: famous pedigrees are the makers of war. For the

perilous deeds which chiefs attempt are not to be done by the ventures

of common men. Renowned nobles are passing away. Lo! Greatest Rolf, thy

great ones have fallen, thy holy line is vanishing. No dim and lowly

race, no low-born dead, no base souls are Pluto's prey, but he weaves

the dooms of the mighty, and fills Phlegethon with noble shapes.

"I do not remember any combat wherein swords were crossed in turn and

blow dealt out for blow more speedily. I take three for each I give;

thus do the Goths requite the wounds I deal them, and thus doth the

stronger hand of the enemy avenge with heaped interest the punishment

that they receive. Yet singly in battle I have given over the bodies of

so many men to the pyre of destruction, that a mound like a hill could

grow up and be raised out of their lopped limbs, and the piles of

carcases would look like a burial-barrow. And now what doeth he, who but

now bade me come forth, vaunting himself with mighty praise, and chafing

others with his arrogant words, and scattering harsh taunts, as though

in his one body he enclosed twelve lives?"

Hjalte answered: "Though I have but scant help, I am not far off. Even

here, where I stand, there is need of aid, and nowhere is a force or a

chosen band of warriors ready for battle wanted more. Already the hard

edges and the spear-points have cleft my shield in splinters, and the

ravening steel has rent and devoured its portions bit by bit in the

battle. The first of these things testifies to and avows itself. Seeing

is better than telling, eyesight faithfuller than hearing. For of the

broken shield only the fastenings remain, and the boss, pierced and

broken in its circle, is all left me. And now, Bjarke, thou art strong,

though thou hast come forth more tardily than was right, and thou

retrievest by bravery the loss caused by thy loitering."

But Bjarke said: "Art thou not yet weary of girding at me and goading me

with taunts? Many things often cause delay. The reason why I tarried was

the sword in my path, which the Swedish foe whirled against my breast

with mighty effort. Nor did the guider of the hilt drive home the sword

with little might; for though the body was armed he smote it as far as

one may when it is bare or defenceless; he pierced the armour of hard

steel like yielding waters; nor could the rough, heavy breastplate give

me any help.

"But where now is he that is commonly called Odin, the mighty in battle,

content ever with a single eye? If thou see him anywhere, Rute, tell

me."

Rute replied: "Bring thine eye closer and look under my arm akimbo:

thou must first hallow thine eyes with the victorious sign, if thou wilt

safely know the War-god face to face."

Then said Bjarke: "If I may look on the awful husband of Frigg,

howsoever he be covered with his white shield, and guide his tall steed,

he shall in no wise go safe out of Leire; it is lawful to lay low in war

the war-waging god. Let a noble death come to those that fall before the

eyes of their king. While life lasts, let us strive for the power to die

honourably and to reap a noble end by our deeds. I will die overpowered

near the head of my slain captain, and at his feet thou also shalt slip

on thy face in death, so that whoso scans the piled corpses may see in

what wise we rate the gold our lord gave us. We shall be the prey of

ravens and a morsel for hungry eagles, and the ravening bird shall feast

on the banquet of our body. Thus should fall princes dauntless in war,

clasping their famous king in a common death."

I have composed this particular series of harangues in metrical shape,

because the gist of the same thoughts is found arranged in a short form

in a certain ancient Danish song, which is repeated by heart by many

conversant with antiquity.

Now, it came to pass that the Goths gained the victory and all the array

of Rolf fell, no man save Wigg remaining out of all those warriors. For

the soldiers of the king paid this homage to his noble virtues in that

battle, that his slaying inspired in all the longing to meet their end,

and union with him in death was accounted sweeter than life.

HIARTUAR rejoiced, and had the tables spread for feasting, bidding the

banquet come after the battle, and fain to honour his triumph with a

carouse. And when he was well filled therewith, he said that it was

matter of great marvel to him, that out of all the army of Rolf no man

had been found to take thought for his life by flight or fraud. Hence,

he said, it had been manifest with what zealous loyalty they had kept

their love for their king, because they had not endured to survive him.

He also blamed his ill fortune, because it had not suffered the homage

of a single one of them to be left for himself: protesting that he would

very willingly accept the service of such men. Then Wigg came forth, and

Hiartuar, as though he were congratulating him on the gift, asked him if

he were willing to fight for him. Wigg assenting, he drew and proferred

him a sword. But Wigg refused the point, and asked for the hilt, saying

first that this had been Rolf's custom when he handed forth a sword to

his soldiers. For in old time those who were about to put themselves in

dependence on the king used to promise fealty by touching the hilt of

the sword. And in this wise Wigg clasped the hilt, and then drove the

point through Hiartuar; thus gaining the vengeance which he had promised

Rolf to accomplish for him. When he had done this, and the soldiers

of Hiartuar rushed at him, he exposed his body to them eagerly and

exultantly, shouting that he felt more joy in the slaughter of the

tyrant than bitterness at his own. Thus the feast was turned into

a funeral, and the wailing of burial followed the joy of victory.

Glorious, ever memorable hero, who valiantly kept his vow, and

voluntarily courted death, staining with blood by his service the tables

of the despot! For the lively valour of his spirit feared not the hands

of the slaughterers, when he had once beheld the place where Rolf had

been wont to live bespattered with the blood of his slayer. Thus the

royalty of Hiartuar was won and ended on the same day. For whatsoever

is gotten with guile melts away in like fashion as it is sought, and no

fruits are long-lasting that have been won by treachery and crime.

Hence it came to pass that the Swedes, who had a little before been the

possessors of Denmark, came to lose even their own liberty. For they

were straightway cut off by the Zealanders, and paid righteous atonement

to the injured shades of Rolf. In this way does stern fortune commonly

avenge the works of craft and cunning.

BOOK THREE.

After Hiartuar, HOTHER, whom I mentioned above, the brother of Athisl,

and also the fosterling of King Gewar, became sovereign of both realms.

It will be easier to relate his times if I begin with the beginning

of his life. For if the earlier years of his career are not doomed to

silence, the latter ones can be more fully and fairly narrated.

When Helgi had slain Hodbrodd, his son Hother passed the length of his

boyhood under the tutelage of King Gewar. While a stripling, he excelled

in strength of body all his foster-brethren and compeers. Moreover, he

was gifted with many accomplishments of mind. He was very skilled in

swimming and archery, and also with the gloves; and further was as

nimble as such a youth could be, his training being equal to his

strength. Though his years were unripe, his richly-dowered spirit

surpassed them. None was more skilful on lyre or harp; and he was

cunning on the timbrel, on the lute, and in every modulation of string

instruments. With his changing measures he could sway the feelings of

men to what passions he would; he knew how to fill human hearts with joy

or sadness, with pity or with hatred, and used to enwrap the soul with

the delight or terror of the ear. All these accomplishments of the youth

pleased Nanna, the daughter of Gewar, mightily, and she began to seek

his embraces. For the valour of a youth will often kindle a maid, and

the courage of those whose looks are not so winning is often acceptable.

For love hath many avenues; the path of pleasure is opened to some

by grace, to others by bravery of soul, and to some by skill in

accomplishments. Courtesy brings to some stores of Love, while most are

commended by brightness of beauty. Nor do the brave inflict a shallower

wound on maidens than the comely.

Now it befell that Balder the son of Odin was troubled at the sight of

Nanna bathing, and was seized with boundless love. He was kindled by her

fair and lustrous body, and his heart was set on fire by her manifest

beauty; for nothing exciteth passion like comeliness. Therefore he

resolved to slay with the sword Hother, who, he feared, was likeliest to

baulk his wishes; so that his love, which brooked no postponement, might

not be delayed in the enjoyment of its desire by any obstacle.

About this time Hother chanced, while hunting, to be led astray by a

mist, and he came on a certain lodge in which were wood-maidens; and

when they greeted him by his own name, he asked who they were.

They declared that it was their guidance and government that mainly

determined the fortunes of war. For they often invisibly took part

in battles, and by their secret assistance won for their friends the

coveted victories. They averted, indeed, that they could win triumphs

and inflict defeats as they would; and further told him how Balder had

seen his foster-sister Nanna while she bathed, and been kindled with

passion for her; but counselled Hother not to attack him in war, worthy

as he was of his deadliest hate, for they declared that Balder was a

demigod, sprung secretly from celestial seed. When Hother had heard

this, the place melted away and left him shelterless, and he found

himself standing in the open and out in the midst of the fields, without

a vestige of shade. Most of all he marvelled at the swift flight of the

maidens, the shifting of the place, and the delusive semblance of the

building. For he knew not that all that had passed around him had been a

mere mockery and an unreal trick of the arts of magic.

Returning thence, he related to Gewar the mystification that had

followed on his straying, and straightway asked him for his daughter.

Gewar answered that he would most gladly favour him, but that he feared

if he rejected Balder he would incur his wrath; for Balder, he said, had

proffered him a like request. For he said that the sacred strength of

Balder's body was proof even against steel; adding, however, that he

knew of a sword which could deal him his death, which was fastened up in

the closest bonds; this was in the keeping of Miming, the Satyr of the

woods, who also had a bracelet of a secret and marvellous virtue, that

used to increase the wealth of the owner. Moreover, the way to these

regions was impassable and filled with obstacles, and therefore hard for

mortal men to travel. For the greater part of the road was perpetually

beset with extraordinary cold. So he advised him to harness a car with

reindeer, by means of whose great speed he could cross the hard-frozen

ridges. And when he had got to the place, he should set up his tent away

from the sun in such wise that it should catch the shadow of the cave

where Miming was wont to be; while he should not in return cast a

shade upon Miming, so that no unaccustomed darkness might be thrown and

prevent the Satyr from going out. Thus both the bracelet and the sword

would be ready to his hand, one being attended by fortune in wealth

and the other by fortune in war, and each of them thus bringing a great

prize to the owner. Thus much said Gewar; and Hother was not slow to

carry out his instructions. Planting his tent in the manner aforesaid,

he passed the nights in anxieties and the days in hunting. But through

either season he remained very wakeful and sleepless, allotting the

divisions of night and day so as to devote the one to reflection on

events, and to spend the other in providing food for his body. Once as

he watched all night, his spirit was drooping and dazed with anxiety,

when the Satyr cast a shadow on his tent. Aiming a spear at him, he

brought him down with the blow, stopped him, and bound him, while he

could not make his escape. Then in the most dreadful words he threatened

him with the worst, and demanded the sword and bracelets. The Satyr was

not slow to tender him the ransom of his life for which he was asked.

So surely do all prize life beyond wealth; for nothing is ever cherished

more among mortals than the breath of their own life. Hother, exulting

in the treasure he had gained, went home enriched with trophies which,

though few, were noble.

When Gelder, the King of Saxony, heard that Hother had gained these

things, he kept constantly urging his soldiers to go and carry off such

glorious booty; and the warriors speedily equipped a fleet in obedience

to their king. Gewar, being very learned in divining and an expert in

the knowledge of omens, foresaw this; and summoning Hother, told him,

when Gelder should join battle with him, to receive his spears with

patience, and not let his own fly until he saw the enemy's missiles

exhausted; and further, to bring up the curved scythes wherewith the

vessels could be rent and the helmets and shields plucked from the

soldiers. Hother followed his advice and found its result fortunate. For

he bade his men, when Gelder began to charge, to stand their ground and

defend their bodies with their shields, affirming that the victory in

that battle must be won by patience. But the enemy nowhere kept back

their missiles, spending them all in their extreme eagerness to fight;

and the more patiently they found Hother bear himself in his reception

of their spears and lances, the more furiously they began to hurl them.

Some of these stuck in the shields and some in the ships, and few were

the wounds they inflicted; many of them were seen to be shaken off idly

and to do no hurt. For the soldiers of Hother performed the bidding

of their king, and kept off the attack of the spears by a penthouse of

interlocked shields; while not a few of the spears smote lightly on

the bosses and fell into the waves. When Gelder was emptied of all his

store, and saw the enemy picking it up, and swiftly hurling it back

at him, he covered the summit of the mast with a crimson shield, as a

signal of peace, and surrendered to save his life. Hother received him

with the friendliest face and the kindliest words, and conquered him as

much by his gentleness as he had by his skill.

At this time Helgi, King of Halogaland, was sending frequent embassies

to press his suit for Thora, daughter of Kuse, sovereign of the Finns

and Perms. Thus is weakness ever known by its wanting help from others.

For while all other young men of that time used to sue in marriage with

their own lips, this man was afflicted with so faulty an utterance that

he was ashamed to be heard not only by strangers, but by those of his

own house. So much doth calamity shun all witnesses; for natural defects

are the more vexing the more manifest they are. Kuse despised his

embassy, answering that that man did not deserve a wife who trusted too

little to his own manhood, and borrowed by entreaty the aid of others in

order to gain his suit. When Helgi heard this, he besought Hother, whom

he knew to be an accomplished pleader, to favour his desires, promising

that he would promptly perform whatsoever he should command him. The

earnest entreaties of the youth prevailed on Hother, and he went to

Norway with an armed fleet, intending to achieve by arms the end which

he could not by words. And when he had pleaded for Helgi with the

most dulcet eloquence, Kuse rejoined that his daughter's wish must be

consulted, in order that no paternal strictness might forestall anything

against her will. He called her in and asked her whether she felt a

liking for her wooer; and when she assented he promised Helgi her hand.

In this way Hother, by the sweet sounds of his fluent and well-turned

oratory, opened the ears of Kuse, which were before deaf to the suit he

urged.

While this was passing in Halogaland, Balder entered the country of

Gewar armed, in order to sue for Nanna. Gewar bade him learn Nanna's

own mind; so he approached the maiden with the most choice and cajoling

words; and when he could win no hearing for his prayers, he persisted in

asking the reason of his refusal. She replied, that a god could not wed

with a mortal, because the vast difference of their natures prevented

any bond of intercourse. Also the gods sometimes used to break their

pledges; and the bond contracted between unequals was apt to snap

suddenly. There was no firm tie between those of differing estate; for

beside the great, the fortunes of the lowly were always dimmed. Also

lack and plenty dwelt in diverse tents, nor was there any fast bond of

intercourse between gorgeous wealth and obscure poverty. In fine, the

things of earth would not mate with those of heaven, being sundered by

a great original gulf through a difference in nature; inasmuch as mortal

man was infinitely far from the glory of the divine majesty. With

this shuffling answer she eluded the suit of Balder, and shrewdly wove

excuses to refuse his hand.

When Hother heard this from Gewar, he complained long to Helgi of

Balder's insolence. Both were in doubt as to what should be done, and

beat their brains over divers plans; for converse with a friend in the

day of trouble, though it removeth not the peril, yet maketh the heart

less sick. Amid all the desires of their souls the passion of valour

prevailed, and a naval battle was fought with Balder. One would have

thought it a contest of men against gods, for Odin and Thor and the holy

array of the gods fought for Balder. There one could have beheld a war

in which divine and human might were mingled. But Hother was clad in

his steel-defying tunic, and charged the closest bands of the gods,

assailing them as vehemently as a son of earth could assail the powers

above. However, Thor was swinging his club with marvellous might, and

shattered all interposing shields, calling as loudly on his foes

to attack him as upon his friends to back him up. No kind of armour

withstood his onset, no man could receive his stroke and live.

Whatsoever his blow fended off it crushed; neither shield nor helm

endured the weight of its dint; no greatness of body or of strength

could serve. Thus the victory would have passed to the gods, but that

Hother, though his line had already fallen back, darted up, hewed off

the club at the haft, and made it useless. And the gods, when they had

lost this weapon, fled incontinently. But that antiquity vouches for it,

it were quite against common belief to think that men prevailed against

gods. (We call them gods in a supposititious rather than in a real

sense; for to such we give the title of deity by the custom of nations,

not because of their nature.)

As for Balder, he took to flight and was saved. The conquerors either

hacked his ships with their swords or sunk them in the sea; not content

to have defeated gods, they pursued the wrecks of the fleet with such

rage, as if they would destroy them to satiate their deadly passion for

war. Thus doth prosperity commonly whet the edge of licence. The haven,

recalling by its name Balder's flight, bears witness to the war. Gelder,

the King of Saxony, who met his end in the same war, was set by Hother

upon the corpses of his oarsmen, and then laid on a pyre built of

vessels, and magnificently honoured in his funeral by Hother, who not

only put his ashes in a noble barrow, treating them as the remains of

a king, but also graced them with most reverent obsequies. Then, to

prevent any more troublesome business delaying his hopes of marriage,

he went back to Gewar and enjoyed the coveted embraces of Nanna. Next,

having treated Helgi and Thora very generously, he brought his new queen

back to Sweden, being as much honoured by all for his victory as Balder

was laughed at for his flight.

At this time the nobles of the Swedes repaired to Demnark to pay their

tribute; but Hother, who had been honoured as a king by his countrymen

for the splendid deeds of his father, experienced what a lying pander

Fortune is. For he was conquered in the field by Balder, whom a little

before he had crushed, and was forced to flee to Gewar, thus losing

while a king that victory which he had won as a common man. The

conquering Balder, in order to slake his soldiers, who were parched with

thirst, with the blessing of a timely draught, pierced the earth deep

and disclosed a fresh spring. The thirsty ranks made with gaping lips

for the water that gushed forth everywhere. The traces of these springs,

eternised by the name, are thought not quite to have dried up yet,

though they have ceased to well so freely as of old. Balder was

continually harassed by night phantoms feigning the likeness of Nanna,

and fell into such ill health that he could not so much as walk,

and began the habit of going his journeys in a two horse car or a

four-wheeled carriage. So great was the love that had steeped his heart

and now had brought him down almost to the extremity of decline. For he

thought that his victory had brought him nothing if Nanna was not his

prize. Also Frey, the regent of the gods, took his abode not far from

Upsala, where he exchanged for a ghastly and infamous sin-offering the

old custom of prayer by sacrifice, which had been used by so many

ages and generations. For he paid to the gods abominable offerings, by

beginning to slaughter human victims.

Meantime Hother (1) learned that Denmark lacked leaders, and that

Hiartuar had swiftly expiated the death of Rolf; and he used to say

that chance had thrown into his hands that to which he could scarce

have aspired. For first, Rolf, whom he ought to have killed, since he

remembered that Rolf's father had slain his own, had been punished by

the help of another; and also, by the unexpected bounty of events,

a chance had been opened to him of winning Denmark. In truth, if the

pedigree of his forefathers were rightly traced, that realm was his by

ancestral right! Thereupon he took possession, with a very great fleet,

of Isefjord, a haven of Zealand, so as to make use of his impending

fortune. There the people of the Danes met him and appointed him king;

and a little after, on hearing of the death of his brother Athisl, whom

he had bidden rule the Swedes, he joined the Swedish empire to that of

Denmark. But Athisl was cut off by an ignominious death. For whilst, in

great jubilation of spirit, he was honouring the funeral rites of

Rolf with a feast, he drank too greedily, and paid for his filthy

intemperance by his sudden end. And so, while he was celebrating the

death of another with immoderate joviality, he forced on his own apace.

While Hother was in Sweden, Balder also came to Zealand with a fleet;

and since he was thought to be rich in arms and of singular majesty,

the Danes accorded him with the readiest of voices whatever he asked

concerning the supreme power. With such wavering judgment was the

opinion of our forefathers divided. Hother returned from Sweden and

attacked him. They both coveted sway, and the keenest contest for the

sovereignty began between them; but it was cut short by the flight of

Hother. He retired to Jutland, and caused to be named after him the

village in which he was wont to stay. Here he passed the winter season,

and then went back to Sweden alone and unattended. There he summoned the

grandees, and told them that he was weary of the light of life because

of the misfortunes wherewith Balder had twice victoriously stricken him.

Then he took farewell of all, and went by a circuitous path to a place

that was hard of access, traversing forests uncivilised. For it oft

happens that those upon whom has come some inconsolable trouble of

spirit seek, as though it were a medicine to drive away their sadness,

far and sequestered retreats, and cannot bear the greatness of their

grief amid the fellowship of men; so dear, for the most part, is

solitude to sickness. For filthiness and grime are chiefly pleasing to

those who have been stricken with ailments of the soul. Now he had been

wont to give out from the top of a hill decrees to the people when they

came to consult him; and hence when they came they upbraided the sloth

of the king for hiding himself, and his absence was railed at by all

with the bitterest complaints.

But Hother, when he had wandered through remotest byways and crossed an

uninhabited forest, chanced to come upon a cave where dwelt some maidens

whom he knew not; but they proved to be the same who had once given him

the invulnerable coat. Asked by them wherefore he had come thither, he

related the disastrous issue of the war. So he began to bewail the ill

luck of his failures and his dismal misfortunes, condemning their breach

of faith, and lamenting that it had not turned out for him as they had

promised him. But the maidens said that though he had seldom come off

victorious, he had nevertheless inflicted as much defeat on the enemy

as they on him, and had dealt as much carnage as he had shared in.

Moreover, the favour of victory would be speedily his, if he could first

lay hands upon a food of extraordinary delightsomeness which had

been devised to increase the strength of Balder. For nothing would be

difficult if he could only get hold of the dainty which was meant to

enhance the rigour of his foe.

Hard as it sounded for earthborn endeavours to make armed assault upon

the gods, the words of the maidens inspired Hother's mind with instant

confidence to fight with Balder. Also some of his own people said that

he could not safely contend with those above; but all regard for their

majesty was expelled by the boundless fire of his spirit. For in brave

souls vehemence is not always sapped by reason, nor doth counsel defeat

rashness. Or perchance it was that Hother remembered how the might of

the lordliest oft proveth unstable, and how a little clod can batter

down great chariots.

On the other side, Balder mustered the Danes to arms and met Hother

in the field. Both sides made a great slaughter; the carnage of the

opposing parties was nearly equal, and night stayed the battle. About

the third watch, Hother, unknown to any man, went out to spy upon the

enemy, anxiety about the impending peril having banished sleep. This

strong excitement favours not bodily rest, and inward disquiet suffers

not outward repose. So, when he came to the camp of the enemy he heard

that three maidens had gone out carrying the secret feast of Balder. He

ran after them (for their footsteps in the dew betrayed their flight),

and at last entered their accustomed dwelling. When they asked him who

he was, he answered, a lutanist, nor did the trial belie his profession.

For when the lyre was offered him, he tuned its strings, ordered and

governed the chords with his quill, and with ready modulation poured

forth a melody pleasant to the ear. Now they had three snakes, of whose

venom they were wont to mix a strengthening compound for the food of

Balder, and even now a flood of slaver was dripping on the food from the

open mouths of the serpents. And some of the maidens would, for kindness

sake, have given Hother a share of the dish, had not eldest of the three

forbidden them, declaring that Balder would be cheated if they increased

the bodily powers of his enemy. He had said, not that he was Hother, but

that he was one of his company. Now the same nymphs, in their gracious

kindliness, bestowed on him a belt of perfect sheen and a girdle which

assured victory.

Retracing the path by which he had come, he went back on the same road,

and meeting Balder plunged his sword into his side, and laid him low

half dead. When the news was told to the soldiers, a cheery shout of

triumph rose from all the camp of Hother, while the Danes held a public

mourning for the fate of Balder. He, feeling no doubt of his impending

death, and stung by the anguish of his wound, renewed the battle on

the morrow; and, when it raged hotly, bade that he should be borne on a

litter into the fray, that he might not seem to die ignobly within his

tent. On the night following, Proserpine was seen to stand by him in a

vision, and to promise that on the morrow he should have her embrace.

The boding of the dream was not idle; for when three days had passed,

Balder perished from the excessive torture of his wound; and his body

given a royal funeral, the army causing it to be buried in a barrow

which they had made.

Certain men of our day, Chief among whom was Harald, (2) since the story

of the ancient burial-place still survived, made a raid on it by night

in the hope of finding money, but abandoned their attempt in sudden

panic. For the hill split, and from its crest a sudden and mighty

torrent of loud-roaring waters seemed to burst; so that its flying mass,

shooting furiously down, poured over the fields below, and enveloped

whatsoever it struck upon, and at its onset the delvers were dislodged,

flung down their mattocks, and fled divers ways; thinking that if they

strove any longer to carry through their enterprise they would be caught

in the eddies of the water that was rushing down. Thus the guardian gods

of that spot smote fear suddenly into the minds of the youths, taking

them away from covetousness, and turning them to see to their safety;

teaching them to neglect their greedy purpose and be careful of their

lives. Now it is certain that this apparent flood was not real but

phantasmal; not born in the bowels of the earth (since Nature suffereth

not liquid springs to gush forth in a dry place), but produced by some

magic agency. All men afterwards, to whom the story of that breaking in

had come down, left this hill undisturbed. Wherefore it has never been

made sure whether it really contains any wealth; for the dread of peril

has daunted anyone since Harald from probing its dark foundations.

But Odin, though he was accounted the chief of the gods, began to

inquire of the prophets and diviners concerning the way to accomplish

vengeance for his son, as well as all others whom he had beard were

skilled in the most recondite arts of soothsaying. For godhead that is

incomplete is oft in want of the help of man. Rostioph (Hrossthiof),

the Finn, foretold to him that another son must be born to him by Rinda

(Wrinda), daughter of the King of the Ruthenians; this son was destined

to exact punishment for the slaying of his brother. For the gods had

appointed to the brother that was yet to be born the task of avenging

his kinsman. Odin, when he heard this, muffled his face with a cap, that

his garb might not betray him, and entered the service of the said king

as a soldier; and being made by him captain of the soldiers, and given

an army, won a splendid victory over the enemy. And for his stout

achievement in this battle the king admitted him into the chief place

in his friendship, distinguishing him as generously with gifts as

with honours. A very little while afterwards Odin routed the enemy

single-handed, and returned, at once the messenger and the doer of

the deed. All marvelled that the strength of one man could deal such

slaughter upon a countless host. Trusting in these services, he privily

let the king into the secret of his love, and was refreshed by his most

gracious favour; but when he sought a kiss from the maiden, he received

a cuff. But he was not driven from his purpose either by anger at the

slight or by the odiousness of the insult.

Next year, loth to quit ignobly the quest he had taken up so eagerly, he

put on the dress of a foreigner and went back to dwell with the king. It

was hard for those who met him to recognise him; for his assumed filth

obliterated his true features, and new grime hid his ancient aspect. He

said that his name was Roster (Hrosstheow), and that he was skilled

in smithcraft. And his handiwork did honour to his professions: for he

portrayed in bronze many and many a shape most beautifully, so that he

received a great mass of gold from the king, and was ordered to

hammer out the ornaments of the matrons. So, after having wrought many

adornments for women's wearing, he at last offered to the maiden a

bracelet which he had polished more laboriously than the rest and

several rings which were adorned with equal care. But no services could

assuage the wrath of Rinda; when he was fain to kiss her she cuffed him;

for gifts offered by one we hate are unacceptable, while those tendered

by a friend are far more grateful: so much doth the value of the

offering oft turn on the offerer. For this stubborn-hearted maiden never

doubted that the crafty old man was feigning generosity in order to

seize an opening to work his lust. His temper, moreover, was keen and

indomitable; for she knew that his homage covered guile, and that under

the devotion of his gifts there lay a desire for crime. Her father fell

to upbraiding her heavily for refusing the match; but she loathed to wed

an old man, and the plea of her tender years lent her some support in

her scorning of his hand; for she said that a young girl ought not to

marry prematurely.

But Odin, who had found that nothing served the wishes of lovers more

than tough persistency, though he was stung with the shame of his double

rebuff, nevertheless, effacing the form he had worn before, went to the

king for the third time, professing the completest skill in soldiership.

He was led to take this pains not only by pleasure but by the wish to

wipe out his disgrace. For of old those who were skilled in magic gained

this power of instantly changing their aspect and exhibiting the most

different shapes. Indeed, they were clever at imitating any age, not

only in its natural bodily appearance, but also in its stature; and so

the old man, in order to exhibit his calling agreeably, used to ride

proudly up and down among the briskest of them. But not even such a

tribute could move the rigour of the maiden; for it is hard for the mind

to come back to a genuine liking for one against whom it has once borne

heavy dislike. When he tried to kiss her at his departure, she repulsed

him so that he tottered and smote his chin upon the ground. Straightway

he touched her with a piece of bark whereon spells were written, and

made her like unto one in frenzy: which was a gentle revenge to take for

all the insults he had received.

But still he did not falter in the fulfilment of his purpose; for trust

in his divine majesty buoyed him up with confidence; so, assuming the

garb of a maiden, this indefatigable journeyer repaired for the

fourth time to the king, and, on being received by him, showed himself

assiduous and even forward. Most people believed him to be a woman, as

he was dressed almost in female attire. Also he declared that his name

was Wecha, and his calling that of a physician: and this assertion

he confirmed by the readiest services. At last he was taken into the

household of the queen, and played the part of a waiting-woman to the

princess, and even used to wash the soil off her feet at eventide; and

as he was applying the water he was suffered to touch her calves and the

upper part of the thighs. But fortune goes with mutable steps, and thus

chance put into his hand what his address had never won. For it happened

that the girl fell sick, and looked around for a cure; and she summoned

to protect her health those very hands which aforetime she had rejected,

and appealed for preservation to him whom she had ever held in loathing.

He examined narrowly all the symptoms of the trouble, and declared that,

in order to check the disease as soon as possible, it was needful to use

a certain drugged draught; but that it was so bitterly compounded, that

the girl could never endure so violent a cure unless she submitted to

be bound; since the stuff of the malady must be ejected from the very

innermost tissues. When her father heard this he did not hesitate

to bind his daughter; and laying her on the bed, he bade her endure

patiently all the applications of the doctor. For the king was tricked

by the sight of the female dress, which the old man was using to

disguise his persistent guile; and thus the seeming remedy became an

opportunity of outrage. For the physician seized the chance of love,

and, abandoning his business of healing, sped to the work, not of

expelling the fever, but of working his lust; making use of the sickness

of the princess, whom in sound health he had found adverse to him. It

will not be wearisome if I subjoin another version of this affair.

For there are certain who say that the king, when he saw the physician

groaning with love, but despite all his expense of mind and body

accomplishing nothing, did not wish to rob of his due reward one who had

so well earned it, and allowed him to lie privily with his daughter.

So doth the wickedness of the father sometimes assail the child, when

vehement passion perverts natural mildness. But his fault was soon

followed by a remorse that was full of shame, when his daughter bore a

child.

But the gods, whose chief seat was then at Byzantium, (Asgard), seeing

that Odin had tarnished the fair name of godhead by divers injuries to

its majesty, thought that he ought to be removed from their society.

And they had him not only ousted from the headship, but outlawed and

stripped of all worship and honour at home; thinking it better that the

power of their infamous president should be overthrown than that public

religion should be profaned; and fearing that they might themselves be

involved in the sin of another, and though guiltless be punished for the

crime of the guilty. For they saw that, now the derision of their great

god was brought to light, those whom they had lured to proffer them

divine honours were exchanging obeisance for scorn and worship for

shame; that holy rites were being accounted sacrilege, and fixed and

regular ceremonies deemed so much childish raving. Fear was in their

souls, death before their eyes, and one would have supposed that the

fault of one was visited upon the heads of all. So, not wishing Odin

to drive public religion into exile, they exiled him and put one Oller

(Wulder?) in his place, to bear the symbols not only Of royalty but also

of godhead, as though it had been as easy a task to create a god as a

king. And though they had appointed him priest for form's sake, they

endowed him actually with full distinction, that he might be seen to be

the lawful heir to the dignity, and no mere deputy doing another's work.

Also, to omit no circumstance of greatness, they further gave his the

name of Odin, trying by the prestige of that title to be rid of the

obloquy of innovation. For nearly ten years Oller held the presidency

of the divine senate; but at last the gods pitied the horrible exile of

Odin, and thought that he had now been punished heavily enough; so he

exchanged his foul and unsightly estate for his ancient splendour; for

the lapse of time had now wiped out the brand of his earlier disgrace.

Yet some were to be found who judged that he was not worthy to approach

and resume his rank, because by his stage-tricks and his assumption of a

woman's work he had brought the foulest scandal on the name of the gods.

Some declare that he bought back the fortune of his lost divinity with

money; flattering some of the gods and mollifying some with bribes;

and that at the cost of a vast sum he contrived to get back to the

distinction which he had long quitted. If you ask how much he paid

for them, inquire of those who have found out what is the price of a

godhead. I own that to me it is but little worth.

Thus Oller was driven out from Byzantium by Odin and retired into

Sweden. Here, while he was trying, as if in a new world, to repair the

records of his glory, the Danes slew him. The story goes that he was

such a cunning wizard that he used a certain bone, which he had marked

with awful spells, wherewith to cross the seas, instead of a vessel;

and that by this bone he passed over the waters that barred his way as

quickly as by rowing.

But Odin, now that he had regained the emblems of godhead, shone over

all parts of the world with such a lustre of renown that all nations

welcomed him as though he were light restored to the universe; nor was

any spot to be found on the earth which did not hornage to his might.

Then finding that Boe, his son by Rhlda, was enamoured of the hardships

of war, he called him, and bade him bear in mind the slaying of his

brother: saying that it would be better for him to take vengeande on the

murderers of Balder than to overcome them in battle; for warfare was

most fitting and wholesome when a holy occasion for waging it was

furnished by a righteous opening for vengeande.

News came meantime that Gewar had been slain by the guile of his own

satrap (jarl), Gunne. Hother determined to visit his murder with the

strongest and sharpest revenge. So he surprised Gunne, cast him on a

blazing pyre, and burnt him; for Gunne had himself treacherously waylaid

Gewar, and burnt him alive in the night. This was his offering of

vengeance to the shade of his foster-father; and then he made his sons,

Herlek and Gerit, rulers of Norway.

Then he summoned the elders to assembly, and told them that he would

perish in the war wherein he was bound to meet Boe, and said that he

knew this by no doubtful guesswork, but by sure prophecies of seers.

So he besought them to make his son RORIK king, so that the judgment

of wicked men should not transfer the royalty to strange and unknown

houses; averring that he would reap more joy from the succession of

his son than bitterness from his own impending death. This request was

speedily granted. Then he met Boe in battle and was killed; but small

joy the victory gave Boe. Indeed, he left the battle so sore stricken

that he was lifted on his shield and carried home by his foot-soldiers

supporting him in turn, to perish next day of the pain of his wounds.

The Ruthenian army gave his body a gorgeous funeral and buried it in

a splendid howe, which it piled in his name, to save the record of so

mighty a warrior from slipping out of the recollection of after ages.

So the Kurlanders and the Swedes, as though the death of Hother set them

free from the burden of their subjection, resolved to attack Denmark, to

which they were accustomed to do homage with a yearly tax. By this the

Slavs also were emboldened to revolt, and a number of others were turned

from subjects into foes. Rorik, in order to check this wrongdoing,

summoned his country to arms, recounted the deeds of his forefathers,

and urged them in a passionate harangue unto valorous deeds. But the

barbarians, loth to engage without a general, and seeing that they

needed a head, appointed a king over them; and, displaying all the rest

of their military force, hid two companies of armed men in a dark spot.

But Rorik saw the trap; and perceiving that his fleet was wedged in a

certain narrow creek among the shoal water, took it out from the sands

where it was lying, and brought it forth to sea; lest it should strike

on the oozy swamps, and be attacked by the foe on different sides. Also,

he resolved that his men should go into hiding during the day, where

they could stay and suddenly fall on the invaders of his ships. He said

that perchance the guile might in the end recoil on the heads of its

devisors. And in fact the barbarians who had been appointed to the

ambuscade knew nothing of the wariness of the Danes, and sallying

against them rashly, were all destroyed. The remaining force of the

Slavs, knowing nothing of the slaughter of their friends, hung in doubt

wondering over the reason of Rorik's tarrying. And after waiting long

for him as the months wearily rolled by, and finding delay every day

more burdensome, they at last thought they should attack him with their

fleet.

Now among them there was a man of remarkable stature, a wizard by

calling. He, when he beheld the squadrons of the Danes, said: "Suffer

a private combat to forestall a public slaughter, so that the danger

of many may be bought off at the cost of a few. And if any of you shall

take heart to fight it out with me, I will not flinch from these terms

of conflict. But first of all I demand that you accept the terms I

prescribe, the form whereof I have devised as follows: If I conquer, let

freedom be granted us from taxes; if I am conquered, let the tribute be

paid you as of old: For to-day I will either free my country from the

yoke of slavery by my victory or bind her under it by my defeat. Accept

me as the surety and the pledge for either issue." One of the Danes,

whose spirit was stouter than his strength, heard this, and proceeded to

ask Rorik, what would be the reward for the man who met the challenger

in combat? Rorik chanced to have six bracelets, which were so

intertwined that they could not be parted from one another, the chain of

knots being inextricaly laced; and he promised them as a reward for

the man who would venture on the combat. But the youth, who doubted his

fortune, said: "Rorik, if I prove successful, let thy generosity award

the prize of the conqueror, do thou decide and allot the palm; but if

my enterprise go little to my liking, what prize canst thou owe to the

beaten, who will be wrapped either in cruel death or in bitter shame?

These things commonly go with feebleness, these are the wages of the

defeated, for whom naught remains but utter infamy. What guerdon must

be paid, what thanks offered, to him who lacks the prize of courage? Who

has ever garlanded with ivy the weakling in War, or decked him with a

conqueror's wage? Valour wins the prize, not sloth, and failure lacks

renown. For one is followed by triumph and honour, the other by an

unsightly life or by a stagnant end. I, who know not which way the issue

of this duel inclines, dare not boldly anticipate that as a reward, of

which I know not whether it be rightly mine. For one whose victory is

doubtful may not seize the assured reward of the victor. I forbear,

while I am not sure of the day, to claim firmly the title to the wreath.

I refuse the gain, which may be the wages of my death as much as of my

life. It is folly to lay hands on the fruit before it is ripe, and to be

fain to pluck that which one is not yet sure is one's title. This hand

shall win me the prize, or death." Having thus spoken, he smote the

barbarian with his sword; but his fortune was tardier than his spirit;

for the other smote him back, and he fell dead under the force of the

first blow. Thus he was a sorry sight unto the Danes, but the Slavs

granted their triumphant comrade a great procession, and received him

with splendid dances. On the morrow the same man, whether he was elated

with the good fortune of his late victory, or was fired with the wish to

win another, came close to the enemy, and set to girding at them in the

words of his former challenge. For, supposing that he had laid low the

bravest of the Danes, he did not think that any of them would have any

heart left to fight further with him upon his challenge. Also, trusting

that, now one champion had fallen, he had shattered the strength of the

whole army, he thought that naught would be hard to achieve upon which

his later endeavours were bent. For nothing pampers arrogance more than

success, or prompts to pride more surely than prosperity.

So Rorik was vexed that the general courage should be sapped by the

impudence of one man; and that the Danes, with their roll of victories,

should be met presumptuously by those whom they had beaten of old; nay,

should be ignominiously spurned; further, that in all that host not one

man should be found so quick of spirit or so vigorous of arm, that he

longed to sacrifice his life for his country. It was the high-hearted

Ubbe who first wiped off this infamous reproach upon the hesitating

Danes. For he was of great bodily strength and powerful in incantations.

He also purposely asked the prize of the combat, and the king promised

him the bracelets. Then said he: "How can I trust the promise when thou

keepest the pledge in thine own hands, and dost not deposit the gift in

the charge of another? Let there be some one to whom thou canst entrust

the pledge, that thou mayst not be able to take thy promise back. For

the courage of the champion is kindled by the irrevocable certainty of

the prize." Of course it was plain that he had said this in jest; sheer

courage had armed him to repel the insult to his country. But Rorik

thought he was tempted by avarice, and was loth to seem as if, contrary

to royal fashion, he meant to take back the gift or revoke his promise;

so, being stationed on his vessel, he resolved to shake off the

bracelets, and with a mighty swing send them to the asker. But his

attempt was baulked by the width of the gap between them; for the

bracelets fell short of the intended spot, the impulse being too faint

and slack, and were reft away by the waters. For this nickname of

Slyngebond, (swing-bracelet) clung to Rorik. But this event testified

much to the valour of Ubbe. For the loss of his drowned prize never

turned his mind from his bold venture; he would not seem to let his

courage be tempted by the wages of covetousness. So he eagerly went

to fight, showing that he was a seeker of honour and not the slave of

lucre, and that he set bravery before lust of pelf; and intent to prove

that his confidence was based not on hire, but on his own great soul.

Not a moment is lost; a ring is made; the course is thronged with

soldiers; the champions engage; a din arises; the crowd of onlookers

shouts in discord, each backing his own. And so the valour of the

champions blazes to white-heat; falling dead under the wounds dealt by

one another, they end together the combat and their lives. I think that

it was a provision of fortune that neither of them should reap joy and

honour by the other's death. This event won back to Rorik the hearts of

the insurgents and regained him the tribute.

At this time Horwendil and Feng, whose father Gerwendil had been

governor of the Jutes, were appointed in his place by Rorik to defend

Jutland. But Horwendil held the monarchy for three years, and then, to

will the height of glory, devoted himself to roving. Then Koller, King

of Norway, in rivalry of his great deeds and renown, deemed it would be

a handsome deed if by his greater strength in arms he could bedim the

far-famed glory of the rover; and cruising about the sea, he watched for

Horwendil's fleet and came up with it. There was an island lying in the

middle of the sea, which each of the rovers, bringing his ships up on

either side, was holding. The captains were tempted by the pleasant look

of the beach, and the comeliness of the shores led them to look through

the interior of the springtide woods, to go through the glades, and roam

over the sequestered forests. It was here that the advance of Koller and

Horwendil brought them face to face without any witness. Then Horwendil

endeavoured to address the king first, asking him in what way it was his

pleasure to fight, and declaring that one best which needed the courage

of as few as possible. For, said he, the duel was the surest of all

modes of combat for winning the meed of bravery, because it relied only

upon native courage, and excluded all help from the hand of another.

Koller marvelled at so brave a judgment in a youth, and said: "Since

thou hast granted me the choice of battle, I think it is best to employ

that kind which needs only the endeavours of two, and is free from all

the tumult. Certainly it is more venturesome, and allows of a speedier

award of the victory. This thought we share, in this opinion we agree of

our own accord. But since the issue remains doubtful, we must pay

some regard to gentle dealing, and must not give way so far to our

inclinations as to leave the last offices undone. Hatred is in our

hearts; yet let piety be there also, which in its due time may take the

place of rigour. For the rights of nature reconcile us, though we are

parted by differences of purpose; they link us together, howsoever

rancour estrange our spirit. Let us, therefore, have this pious

stipulation, that the conqueror shall give funeral rites to the

conquered. For all allow that these are the last duties of human

kind, from which no righteous man shrinks. Let each army lay aside its

sternness and perform this function in harmony. Let jealousy depart

at death, let the feud be buried in the tomb. Let us not show such an

example of cruelty as to persecute one another's dust, though hatred has

come between us in our lives. It will be a boast for the victor if he

has borne his beaten foe in a lordly funeral. For the man who pays the

rightful dues over his dead enemy wins the goodwill of the survivor; and

whoso devotes gentle dealing to him who is no more, conquers the living

by his kindness. Also there is another disaster, not less lamentable,

which sometimes befalls the living--the loss of some part of their body;

and I think that succor is due to this just as much as to the worst hap

that may befall. For often those who fight keep their lives safe, but

suffer maiming; and this lot is commonly thought more dismal than any

death; for death cuts off memory of all things, while the living cannot

forget the devastation of his own body. Therefore this mischief also

must be helped somehow; so let it be agreed, that the injury of either

of us by the other shall be made good with ten talents (marks) of gold.

For if it be righteous to have compassion on the calamities of another,

how much more is it to pity one's own? No man but obeys nature's

prompting; and he who slights it is a self-murderer."

After mutually pledging their faiths to these terms, they began the

battle. Nor was their strangeness his meeting one another, nor the

sweetness of that spring-green spot, so heeded as to prevent them from

the fray. Horwendil, in his too great ardour, became keener to attack

his enemy than to defend his own body; and, heedless of his shield, had

grasped his sword with both hands; and his boldness did not fail. For by

his rain of blows he destroyed Koller's shield and deprived him of it,

and at last hewed off his foot and drove him lifeless to the ground.

Then, not to fail of his compact, he buried him royally, gave him a howe

of lordly make and pompous obsequies. Then he pursued and slew Koller's

sister Sela, who was a skilled warrior and experienced in roving.

He had now passed three years in valiant deeds of war; and, in order to

win higher rank in Rorik's favour, he assigned to him the best trophies

and the pick of the plunder. His friendship with Rorik enabled him

to woo and will in marriage his daughter Gerutha, who bore him a son

Amleth.

Such great good fortune stung Feng with jealousy, so that he resolved

treacherously to waylay his brother, thus showing that goodness is not

safe even from those of a man's own house. And behold, when a chance

came to murder him, his bloody hand sated the deadly passion of his

soul. Then he took the wife of the brother he had butchered, capping

unnatural murder with incest. For whoso yields to one iniquity, speedily

falls an easier victim to the next, the first being an incentive to

the second. Also, the man veiled the monstrosity of his deed with such

hardihood of cunning, that he made up a mock pretence of goodwill

to excuse his crime, and glossed over fratricide with a show of

righteousness. Gerutha, said he, though so gentle that she would do no

man the slightest hurt, had been visited with her husband's extremest

hate; and it was all to save her that he had slain his brother; for he

thought it shameful that a lady so meek and unrancorous should suffer

the heavy disdain of her husband. Nor did his smooth words fail in their

intent; for at courts, where fools are sometimes favoured and backbiters

preferred, a lie lacks not credit. Nor did Feng keep from shameful

embraces the hands that had slain a brother; pursuing with equal guilt

both of his wicked and impious deeds.

Amleth beheld all this, but feared lest too shrewd a behaviour might

make his uncle suspect him. So he chose to feign dulness, and pretend

an utter lack of wits. This cunning course not only concealed his

intelligence but ensured his safety. Every day he remained in his

mother's house utterly listless and unclean, flinging himself on the

ground and bespattering his person with foul and filthy dirt. His

discoloured face and visage smutched with slime denoted foolish and

grotesque madness. All he said was of a piece with these follies; all

he did savoured of utter lethargy. In a word, you would not have thought

him a man at all, but some absurd abortion due to a mad fit of destiny.

He used at times to sit over the fire, and, raking up the embers with

his hands, to fashion wooden crooks, and harden them in the fire,

shaping at their lips certain barbs, to make them hold more tightly

to their fastenings. When asked what he was about, he said that he was

preparing sharp javelins to avenge his father. This answer was not a

little scoffed at, all men deriding his idle and ridiculous pursuit; but

the thing helped his purpose afterwards. Now it was his craft in this

matter that first awakened in the deeper observers a suspicion of his

cunning. For his skill in a trifling art betokened the hidden talent of

the craftsman; nor could they believe the spirit dull where the hand had

acquired so cunning a workmanship. Lastly, he always watched with the

most punctual care over his pile of stakes that he had pointed in the

fire. Some people, therefore, declared that his mind was quick enough,

and fancied that he only played the simpleton in order to hide his

understanding, and veiled some deep purpose under a cunning feint. His

wiliness (said these) would be most readily detected, if a fair woman

were put in his way in some secluded place, who should provoke his mind

to the temptations of love; all men's natural temper being too blindly

amorous to be artfully dissembled, and this passion being also too

impetuous to be checked by cunning. Therefore, if his lethargy were

feigned, he would seize the opportunity, and yield straightway to

violent delights. So men were commissioned to draw the young man in

his rides into a remote part of the forest, and there assail him with a

temptation of this nature. Among these chanced to be a foster-brother of

Amleth, who had not ceased to have regard to their common nurture;

and who esteemed his present orders less than the memory of their past

fellowship. He attended Amleth among his appointed train, being anxious

not to entrap, but to warn him; and was persuaded that he would suffer

the worst if he showed the slightest glimpse of sound reason, and above

all if he did the act of love openly. This was also plain enough to

Amleth himself. For when he was bidden mount his horse, he deliberately

set himself in such a fashion that he turned his back to the neck and

faced about, fronting the tail; which he proceeded to encompass with the

reins, just as if on that side he would check the horse in its furious

pace. By this cunning thought he eluded the trick, and overcame the

treachery of his uncle. The reinless steed galloping on, with rider

directing its tail, was ludicrous enough to behold.

Amleth went on, and a wolf crossed his path amid the thicket. When his

companions told him that a young colt had met him, he retorted, that in

Feng's stud there were too few of that kind fighting. This was a gentle

but witty fashion of invoking a curse upon his uncle's riches. When

they averred that he had given a cunning answer, he answered that he had

spoken deliberately; for he was loth, to be thought prone to lying

about any matter, and wished to be held a stranger to falsehood; and

accordingly he mingled craft and candour in such wise that, though his

words did lack truth, yet there was nothing to betoken the truth and

betray how far his keenness went.

Again, as he passed along the beach, his companions found the rudder

of a ship, which had been wrecked, and said they had discovered a huge

knife. "This," said he, "was the right thing to carve such a huge ham;"

by which he really meant the sea, to whose infinitude, he thought, this

enormous rudder matched. Also, as they passed the sandhills, and bade

him look at the meal, meaning the sand, he replied that it had been

ground small by the hoary tempests of the ocean. His companions praising

his answer, he said that he had spoken it wittingly. Then they purposely

left him, that he might pluck up more courage to practise wantonness.

The woman whom his uncle had dispatched met him in a dark spot, as

though she had crossed him by chance; and he took her and would have

ravished her, had not his foster-brother, by a secret device, given him

an inkling of the trap. For this man, while pondering the fittest way

to play privily the prompter's part, and forestall the young man's

hazardous lewdness, found a straw on the ground and fastened it

underneath the tail of a gadfly that was flying past; which he then

drove towards the particular quarter where he knew Amleth to be: an

act which served the unwary prince exceedingly well. The token was

interpreted as shrewdly as it had been sent. For Amleth saw the gadfly,

espied with curiosity the straw which it wore embedded in its tail, and

perceived that it was a secret warning to beware of treachery. Alarmed,

scenting a trap, and fain to possess his desire in greater safety, he

caught up the woman in his arms and dragged her off to a distant and

impenetrable fen. Moreover, when they had lain together, he conjured her

earnestly to disclose the matter to none, and the promise of silence was

accorded as heartily as it was asked. For both of them had been under

the same fostering in their childhood; and this early rearing in common

had brought Amleth and the girl into great intimacy.

So, when he had returned home, they all jeeringly asked him whether he

had given way to love, and he avowed that he had ravished the maid. When

he was next asked where he did it, and what had been his pillow, he said

that he had rested upon the hoof of a beast of burden, upon a cockscomb,

and also upon a ceiling. For, when he was starting into temptation, he

had gathered fragments of all these things, in order to avoid lying. And

though his jest did not take aught of the truth out of the story, the

answer was greeted with shouts of merriment from the bystanders. The

maiden, too, when questioned on the matter, declared that he had done

no such thing; and her denial was the more readily credited when it was

found that the escort had not witnessed the deed. Then he who had marked

the gadfly in order to give a hint, wishing to show Amleth that to his

trick he owed his salvation, observed that latterly he had been singly

devoted to Amleth. The young man's reply was apt. Not to seem forgetful

of his informant's service, he said that he had seen a certain thing

bearing a straw flit by suddenly, wearing a stalk of chaff fixed in its

hinder parts. The cleverness of this speech, which made the rest split

with laughter, rejoiced the heart of Amleth's friend.

Thus all were worsted, and none could open the secret lock of the young

man's wisdom. But a friend of Feng, gifted more with assurance than

judgment, declared that the unfathomable cunning of such a mind could

not be detected by any vulgar plot, for the man's obstinacy was so great

that it ought not to be assailed with any mild measures; there were

many sides to his wiliness, and it ought not to be entrapped by any one

method. Accordingly, said he, his own profounder acuteness had hit on

a more delicate way, which was well fitted to be put in practice, and

would effectually discover what they desired to know. Feng was purposely

to absent himself, pretending affairs of great import. Amleth should be

closeted alone with his mother in her chamber; but a man should first be

commissioned to place himself in a concealed part of the room and listen

heedfully to what they talked about. For if the son had any wits at all

he would not hesitate to speak out in the hearing of his mother, or fear

to trust himself to the fidelity of her who bore him. The speaker,

loth to seem readier to devise than to carry out the plot, zealously

proffered himself as the agent of the eavesdropping. Feng rejoiced at

the scheme, and departed on pretence of a long journey. Now he who had

given this counsel repaired privily to the room where Amleth was shut up

with his mother, and lay flown skulking in the straw. But Amleth had

his antidote for the treachery. Afraid of being overheard by some

eavesdropper, he at first resorted to his usual imbecile ways, and

crowed like a noisy cock, beating his arms together to mimic the

flapping of wings. Then he mounted the straw and began to swing his

body and jump again and again, wishing to try if aught lurked there in

hiding. Feeling a lump beneath his feet, he drove his sword into

the spot, and impaled him who lay hid. Then he dragged him from his

concealment and slew him. Then, cutting his body into morsels, he

seethed it in boiling water, and flung it through the mouth of an

open sewer for the swine to eat, bestrewing the stinking mire with his

hapless limbs. Having in this wise eluded the snare, he went back to the

room. Then his mother set up a great wailing, and began to lament her

son's folly to his face; but he said: "Most infamous of women; dost

thou seek with such lying lamentations to hide thy most heavy guilt?

Wantoning like a harlot, thou hast entered a wicked and abominable state

of wedlock, embracing with incestuous bosom thy husband's slayer, and

wheedling with filthy lures of blandishment him who had slain the father

of thy son. This, forsooth, is the way that the mares couple with the

vanquishers of their mates; for brute beasts are naturally incited to

pair indiscriminately; and it would seem that thou, like them, hast

clean forgot thy first husband. As for me, not idly do I wear the mask

of folly; for I doubt not that he who destroyed his brother will riot as

ruthlessly in the blood of his kindred. Therefore it is better to choose

the garb of dulness than that of sense, and to borrow some protection

from a show of utter frenzy. Yet the passion to avenge my father still

burns in my heart; but I am watching the chances, I await the fitting

hour. There is a place for all things; against so merciless and dark

spirit must be used the deeper devices of the mind. And thou, who

hadst been better employed in lamenting thine own disgrace, know it is

superfluity to bewail my witlessness; thou shouldst weep for the blemish

in thine own mind, not for that in another's. On the rest see thou

keep silence." With such reproaches he rent the heart of his mother

and redeemed her to walk in the ways of virtue; teaching her to set the

fires of the past above the seductions of the present.

When Feng returned, nowhere could he find the man who had suggested the

treacherous espial; he searched for him long and carefully, but none

said they had seen him anywhere. Amleth, among others, was asked in jest

if he had come on any trace of him, and replied that the man had gone

to the sewer, but had fallen through its bottom and been stifled by the

floods of filth, and that he had then been devoured by the swine that

came up all about that place. This speech was flouted by those who

heard; for it seemed senseless, though really it expressly avowed the

truth.

Feng now suspected that his stepson was certainly full of guile, and

desired to make away with him, but durst not do the deed for fear of the

displeasure, not only of Amleth's grandsire Rorik, but also of his own

wife. So he thought that the King of Britain should be employed to

slay him, so that another could do the deed, and he be able to feign

innocence. Thus, desirous to hide his cruelty, he chose rather to

besmirch his friend than to bring disgrace on his own head. Amleth, on

departing, gave secret orders to his mother to hang the hall with

woven knots, and to perform pretended obsequies for him a year thence;

promising that he would then return. Two retainers of Feng then

accompanied him, bearing a letter graven on wood--a kind of writing

material frequent in old times; this letter enjoined the king of the

Britons to put to death the youth who was sent over to him. While they

were reposing, Amleth searched their coffers, found the letter, and read

the instructions therein. Whereupon he erased all the writing on the

surface, substituted fresh characters, and so, changing the purport of

the instructions, shifted his own doom upon his companions. Nor was he

satisfied with removing from himself the sentence of death and passing

the peril on to others, but added an entreaty that the King of Britain

would grant his daughter in marriage to a youth of great judgment whom

he was sending to him. Under this was falsely marked the signature of

Feng.

Now when they had reached Britain, the envoys went to the king, and

proffered him the letter which they supposed was an implement of

destruction to another, but which really betokened death to themselves.

The king dissembled the truth, and entreated them hospitably and kindly.

Then Amleth scouted all the splendour of the royal banquet like vulgar

viands, and abstaining very strangely, rejected that plenteous feast,

refraining from the drink even as from the banquet. All marvelled that

a youth and a foreigner should disdain the carefully cooked dainties of

the royal board and the luxurious banquet provided, as if it were

some peasant's relish. So, when the revel broke up, and the king was

dismissing his friends to rest, he had a man sent into the sleeping-room

to listen secretly, in order that he might hear the midnight

conversation of his guests. Now, when Amleth's companions asked him why

he had refrained from the feast of yestereve, as if it were poison, he

answered that the bread was flecked with blood and tainted; that there

was a tang of iron in the liquor; while the meats of the feast reeked of

the stench of a human carcase, and were infected by a kind of smack of

the odour of the charnel. He further said that the king had the eyes of

a slave, and that the queen had in three ways shown the behaviour of a

bondmaid. Thus he reviled with insulting invective not so much the feast

as its givers. And presently his companions, taunting him with his old

defect of wits, began to flout him with many saucy jeers, because he

blamed and cavilled at seemly and worthy things, and because he attacked

thus ignobly an illustrious king and a lady of so refined a behaviour,

bespattering with the shamefullest abuse those who merited all praise.

All this the king heard from his retainer; and declared that he who

could say such things had either more than mortal wisdom or more than

mortal folly; in these few words fathoming the full depth of Amleth's

penetration. Then he summoned his steward and asked him whence he had

procured the bread. The steward declared that it had been made by the

king's own baker. The king asked where the corn had grown of which it

was made, and whether any sign was to be found there of human carnage?

The other answered, that not far off was a field, covered with the

ancient bones of slaughtered men, and still bearing plainly all the

signs of ancient carnage; and that he had himself planted this field

with grain in springtide, thinking it more fruitful than the rest, and

hoping for plenteous abundance; and so, for aught he knew, the bread had

caught some evil savour from this bloodshed. The king, on hearing this,

surmised that Amleth had spoken truly, and took the pains to learn also

what had been the source of the lard. The other declared that his hogs

had, through negligence, strayed from keeping, and battened on the

rotten carcase of a robber, and that perchance their pork had thus come

to have something of a corrupt smack. The king, finding that Amletll's

judgment was right in this thing also, asked of what liquor the steward

had mixed the drink? Hearing that it had been brewed of water and meal,

he had the spot of the spring pointed out to him, and set to digging

deep down; and there he found, rusted away, several swords, the tang

whereof it was thought had tainted the waters. Others relate that Amleth

blamed the drink because, while quaffing it, he had detected some bees

that had fed in the paunch of a dead man; and that the taint, which had

formerly been imparted to the combs, had reappeared in the taste. The

king, seeing that Amleth had rightly given the causes of the taste he

had found so faulty, and learning that the ignoble eyes wherewith Amleth

had reproached him concerned some stain upon his birth, had a secret

interview with his mother, and asked her who his father had really

been. She said she had submitted to no man but the king. But when he

threatened that he would have the truth out of her by a trial, he was

told that he was the offspring of a slave. By the evidence of the avowal

thus extorted he understood the whole mystery of the reproach upon

his origin. Abashed as he was with shame for his low estate, he was so

ravished with the young man's cleverness, that he asked him why he had

aspersed the queen with the reproach that she had demeaned herself like

a slave? But while resenting that the courtliness of his wife had been

accused in the midnight gossip of guest, he found that her mother had

been a bondmaid. For Amleth said he had noted in her three blemishes

showing the demeanor of a slave; first, she had muffled her head in

her mantle as handmaids do; next, that she had gathered up her gown for

walking; and thirdly, that she had first picked out with a splinter, and

then chewed up, the remnant of food that stuck in the crevices between

her teeth. Further, he mentioned that the king's mother had been brought

into slavery from captivity, lest she should seem servile only in her

habits, yet not in her birth.

Then the king adored the wisdom of Amleth as though it were inspired,

and gave him his daughter to wife; accepting his bare word as though it

were a witness from the skies. Moreover, in order to fulfil the bidding

of his friend, he hanged Amleth's companions on the morrow. Amleth,

feigning offence, treated this piece of kindness as a grievance, and

received from the king, as compensation, some gold, which he afterwards

melted in the fire, and secretly caused to be poured into some hollowed

sticks.

When he had passed a whole year with the king he obtained leave to

make a journey, and returned to his own land, carrying away of all

his princely wealth and state only the sticks which held the gold.

On reaching Jutland, he exchanged his present attire for his ancient

demeanour, which he had adopted for righteous ends, purposely assuming

an aspect of absurdity. Covered with filth, he entered the banquet-room

where his own obsequies were being held, and struck all men utterly

aghast, rumour having falsely noised abroad his death. At last terror

melted into mirth, and the guests jeered and taunted one another, that

he whose last rites they were celebrating as through he were dead,

should appear in the flesh. When he was asked concerning his comrades,

he pointed to the sticks he was carrying, and said, "Here is both the

one and the other." This he observed with equal truth and pleasantry;

for his speech, though most thought it idle, yet departed not from the

truth; for it pointed at the weregild of the slain as though it were

themselves. Thereon, wishing to bring the company into a gayer mood,

he jollied the cupbearers, and diligently did the office of plying the

drink. Then, to prevent his loose dress hampering his walk, he girdled

his sword upon his side, and purposely drawing it several times, pricked

his fingers with its point. The bystanders accordingly had both sword

and scabbard riveted across with all iron nail. Then, to smooth the way

more safely to his plot, he went to the lords and plied them heavily

with draught upon draught, and drenched them all so deep in wine, that

their feet were made feeble with drunkenness, and they turned to rest

within the palace, making their bed where they had revelled. Then he

saw they were in a fit state for his plots, and thought that here was a

chance offered to do his purpose. So he took out of his bosom the stakes

he has long ago prepared, and went into the building, where the ground

lay covered with the bodies of the nobles wheezing off their sleep and

their debauch. Then, cutting away its support, he brought down the

hanging his mother had knitted, which covered the inner as well as

the outer walls of the hall. This he flung upon the snorers, and then

applying the crooked stakes, he knotted and bound them up in such

insoluble intricacy, that not one of the men beneath, however hard he

might struggle, could contrive to rise. After this he set fire to the

palace. The flames spread, scattering the conflagration far and wide. It

enveloped the whole dwelling, destroyed the palace, and burnt them all

while they were either buried in deep sleep or vainly striving to arise.

Then he went to the chamber of Feng, who had before this been conducted

by his train into his pavilion; plucked up a sword that chanced to be

hanging to the bed, and planted his own in its place. Then, awakening

his uncle, he told him that his nobles were perishing in the flames, and

that Amleth was here, armed with his crooks to help him, and thirsting

to exact the vengeance, now long overdue, for his father's murder. Feng,

on hearing this, leapt from his couch, but was cut down while deprived

of his own sword, and as he strove in vain to draw the strange one. O

valiant Amleth, and worthy of immortal fame, who being shrewdly armed

with a feint of folly, covered a wisdom too high for human wit under

a marvellous disguise of silliness! And not only found in his subtlety

means to protect his own safety, but also by its guidance found

opportunity to avenge his father. By this skilful defence of himself,

and strenuous revenge for his parent, he has left it doubtful whether we

are to think more of his wit or his bravery. (3)

ENDNOTES:

(1) Saxo now goes back to the history of Denmark. All the

events hitherto related in Bk. III, after the first

paragraph, are a digression in retrospect.

(2) M. conjectures that this was a certain Harald, the bastard

son of Erik the Good, and a wild and dissolute man, who died

in 1135, not long before the probable date of Saxo's birth.

(3) Shakespere's tragedy, "Hamlet", is derived from this story.

BOOK FOUR.

Amleth, when he had accomplished the slaughter of his stepfather, feared

to expose his deed to the fickle judgment of his countrymen, and thought

it well to lie in hiding till he had learnt what way the mob of the

uncouth populace was tending. So the whole neighbourhood, who had

watched the blaze during the night, and in the morning desired to know

the cause of the fire they had seen, perceived the royal palace fallen

in ashes; and, on searching through its ruins, which were yet warm,

found only some shapeless remains of burnt corpses. For the devouring

flame had consumed everything so utterly that not a single token was

left to inform them of the cause of such a disaster. Also they saw the

body of Feng lying pierced by the sword, amid his blood-stained raiment.

Some were seized with open anger, others with grief, and some with

secret delight. One party bewailed the death of their leader, the other

gave thanks that the tyranny of the fratricide was now laid at rest.

Thus the occurrence of the king's slaughter was greeted by the beholders

with diverse minds.

Amleth, finding the people so quiet, made bold to leave his hiding.

Summoning those in whom he knew the memory of his father to be

fast-rooted, he went to the assembly and there made a speech after this

manner:

"Nobles! Let not any who are troubled by the piteous end of Horwendil

be worried by the sight of this disaster before you; be not ye, I say,

distressed, who have remained loyal to your king and duteous to your

father. Behold the corpse, not of a prince, but of a fratricide. Indeed,

it was a sorrier sight when ye saw our prince lying lamentably butchered

by a most infamous fratricide-brother, let me not call him. With your

own compassionating eyes ye have beheld the mangled limbs of Horwendil;

they have seen his body done to death with many wounds. Surely that most

abominable butcher only deprived his king of life that he might despoil

his country of freedom! The hand that slew him made you slaves. Who

then so mad as to choose Feng the cruel before Horwendil the righteous?

Remember how benignantly Horwendil fostered you, how justly he dealt

with you, how kindly he loved you. Remember how you lost the mildest of

princes and the justest of fathers, while in his place was put a tyrant

and an assassin set up; how your rights were confiscated; how everything

was plague-stricken; how the country was stained with infamies; how the

yoke was planted on your necks, and how, your free will was forfeited!

And now all this is over; for ye see the criminal stifled in his own

crimes, the slayer of his kin punished for his misdoings. What man of

but ordinary wit, beholding it, would account this kindness a wrong?

What sane man could be sorry that the crime has recoiled upon the

culprit? Who could lament the killing of a most savage executioner? Or

bewail the righteous death of a most cruel despot? Ye behold the doer of

the deed; he is before you. Yea, I own that I have taken vengeance for

my country and my father. Your hands were equally bound to the task

which mine fulfilled. What it would have beseemed you to accomplish with

me, I achieved alone. Nor had I any partner in so glorious a deed, or

the service of any man to help me. Not that I forget that you would have

helped this work, had I asked you; for doubtless you have remained loyal

to your king and loving to your prince. But I chose that the wicked

should be punished without imperilling you; I thought that others need

not set their shoulders to the burden when I deemed mine strong enough

to bear it. Therefore I consumed all the others to ashes, and left only

the trunk of Feng for your hands to burn, so that on this at least

you may wreak all your longing for a righteous vengeance. Now haste up

speedily, heap the pyre, burn up the body of the wicked, consume away

his guilty limbs, scatter his sinful ashes, strew broadcast his ruthless

dust; let no urn or barrow enclose the abominable remnants of his bones.

Let no trace of his fratricide remain; let there be no spot in his own

land for his tainted limbs; let no neighbourhood suck infection from

him; let not sea nor soil be defiled by harboring his accursed carcase.

I have done the rest; this one loyal duty is left for you. These must be

the tyrant's obsequies, this the funeral procession of the fratricide.

It is not seemly that he who stripped his country of her freedom should

have his ashes covered by his country's earth.

"Besides, why tell again my own sorrows? Why count over my troubles?

Why weave the thread of my miseries anew? Ye know them more fully than I

myself. I, pursued to the death by my stepfather, scorned by my mother,

spat upon by friends, have passed my years in pitiable wise, and my days

in adversity; and my insecure life has teemed with fear and perils.

In fine, I passed every season of my age wretchedly and in extreme

calamity. Often in your secret murmurings together you have sighed over

my lack of wits; there was none (you said) to avenge the father, none

to punish the fratricide. And in this I found a secret testimony of your

love; for I saw that the memory of the King's murder had not yet faded

from your minds.

"Whose breast is so hard that it can be softened by no fellow-feeling

for what I have felt? Who is so stiff and stony, that he is swayed by

no compassion for my griefs? Ye whose hands are clean of the blood of

Horwendil, pity your fosterling, be moved by my calamities. Pity also my

stricken mother, and rejoice with me that the infamy of her who was once

your queen is quenched. For this weak woman had to bear a twofold weight

of ignominy, embracing one who was her husband's brother and murderer.

Therefore, to hide my purpose of revenge and to veil my wit, I

counterfeited a listless bearing; I feigned dulness; I planned a

stratagem; and now you can see with your own eyes whether it has

succeeded, whether it has achieved its purpose to the full; I am content

to leave you to judge so great a matter. It is your turn; trample under

foot the ashes of the murderer! Disdain the dust of him who slew his

brother, and defiled his brother's queen with infamous desecration, who

outraged his sovereign and treasonably assailed his majesty, who

brought the sharpest tyranny upon you, stole your freedom, and crowned

fratricide with incest. I have been the agent of this just vengeance; I

have burned for this righteous retribution; uphold me with a high-born

spirit; pay me the homage that you owe; warm me with your kindly looks.

It is I who have wiped off my country's shame; I who have quenched my

mother's dishonour; I who have beaten back oppression; I who have put to

death the murderer; I who have baffled the artful hand of my uncle with

retorted arts. Were he living, each new day would have multiplied his

crimes. I resented the wrong done to father and to fatherland: I slew

him who was governing you outrageously and more hardly than it beseemed

men. Acknowledge my service, honour my wit, give me the throne if I have

earned it; for you have in me one who has done you a mighty service, and

who is no degenerate heir to his father's power; no fratricide, but the

lawful successor to the throne; and a dutiful avenger of the crime of

murder. It is I who have stripped you of slavery, and clothed you with

freedom; I have restored your height of fortune, and given you your

glory back; I have deposed the despot and triumphed over the butcher.

In your hands is the reward; you know what I have done for you, and from

your righteousness I ask my wage."

Every heart had been moved while the young man thus spoke; he affected

some to compassion, and some even to tears. When the lamentation ceased,

he was appointed king by prompt and general acclaim. For one and all

rested their greatest hopes on his wisdom, since he had devised the

whole of such an achievement with the deepest cunning, and accomplished

it with the most astonishing contrivance. Many could have been seen

marvelling how he had concealed so subtle a plan over so long a space of

time.

After these deeds in Denmark, Amleth equipped three vessels, and went

back to Britain to see his wife and her father. He had also enrolled in

his service the flower of the warriors, and arrayed them very choicely,

wishing to have everything now magnificently appointed, even as of old

he had always worn contemptible gear, and to change all his old devotion

to poverty for outlay on luxury. He also had a shield made for him,

whereon the whole series of his exploits, beginning with his earliest

youth, was painted in exquisite designs. This he bore as a record of his

deeds of prowess, and gained great increase of fame thereby. Here were

to be seen depicted the slaying of Horwendil; the fratricide and incest

of Feng; the infamous uncle, the whimsical nephew; the shapes of the

hooked stakes; the stepfather suspecting, the stepson dissembling; the

various temptations offered, and the woman brought to beguile him; the

gaping wolf; the finding of the rudder; the passing of the sand; the

entering of the wood; the putting of the straw through the gadfly; the

warning of the youth by the tokens; and the privy dealings with the

maiden after the escort was eluded. And likewise could be seen the

picture of the palace; the queen there with her son; the slaying of the

eavesdropper; and how, after being killed, he was boiled down, and so

dropped into the sewer, and so thrown out to the swine; how his limbs

were strewn in the mud, and so left for the beasts to finish. Also

it could be seen how Amleth surprised the secret of his sleeping

attendants, how he erased the letters, and put new characters in their

places; how he disdained the banquet and scorned the drink; how

he condemned time face of the king and taxed the Queen with faulty

behaviour. There was also represented the hanging of the envoys, and

the young man's wedding; then the voyage back to Denmark; the festive

celebration of the funeral rites; Amleth, in answer to questions,

pointing to the sticks in place of his attendants, acting as cupbearer,

and purposely drawing his sword and pricking his fingers; the sword

riveted through, the swelling cheers of the banquet, the dance growing

fast and furious; the hangings flung upon the sleepers, then fastened

with the interlacing crooks, and wrapped tightly round them as they

slumbered; the brand set to the mansion, the burning of the guests, the

royal palace consumed with fire and tottering down; the visit to the

sleeping-room of Feng, the theft of his sword, the useless one set

in its place; and the king slain with his own sword's point by his

stepson's hand. All this was there, painted upon Amleth's battle-shield

by a careful craftsman in the choicest of handiwork; he copied truth in

his figures, and embodied real deeds in his outlines. Moreover, Amleth's

followers, to increase the splendour of their presence, wore shields

which were gilt over.

The King of Britain received them very graciously, and treated them with

costly and royal pomp. During the feast he asked anxiously whether Feng

was alive and prosperous. His son-in-law told him that the man of whose

welfare he was vainly inquiring had perished by the sword. With a flood

of questions he tried to find out who had slain Feng, and learnt that

the messenger of his death was likewise its author. And when the king

heard this, he was secretly aghast, because he found that an old promise

to avenge Feng now devolved upon himself. For Feng and he had determined

of old, by a mutual compact, that one of them should act as avenger of

the other. Thus the king was drawn one way by his love for his daughter

and his affection for his son-in-law; another way by his regard for his

friend, and moreover by his strict oath and the sanctity of their mutual

declarations, which it was impious to violate. At last he slighted

the ties of kinship, and sworn faith prevailed. His heart turned to

vengeance, and he put the sanctity of his oath before family bonds.

But since it was thought sin to wrong the holy ties of hospitality, he

preferred to execrate his revenge by the hand of another, wishing

to mask his secret crime with a show of innocence. So he veiled his

treachery with attentions, and hid his intent to harm under a show of

zealous goodwill. His queen having lately died of illness, he requested

Amleth to undertake the mission of making him a fresh match, saying that

he was highly delighted with his extraordinary shrewdness. He declared

that there was a certain queen reigning in Scotland, whom he vehemently

desired to marry. Now he knew that she was not only unwedded by reason

of her chastity, but that in the cruelty of her arrogance she had

always loathed her wooers, and had inflicted on her lovers the uttermost

punishment, so that not one but of all the multitude was to be found who

had not paid for his insolence with his life.

Perilous as this commission was Amleth started, never shrinking to obey

the duty imposed upon him, but trusting partly in his own servants, and

partly in the attendants of the king. He entered Scotland, and, when

quite close to the abode of the queen, he went into a meadow by the

wayside to rest his horses. Pleased by the look of the spot, he thought

of resting--the pleasant prattle of the stream exciting a desire to

sleep--and posted men to keep watch some way off. The queen on hearing

of this, sent out ten warriors to spy on the approach of the foreigners

and their equipment. One of these, being quick-witted, slipped past

the sentries, pertinaciously made his way up, and took away the shield,

which Amleth had chanced to set at his head before he slept, so gently

that he did not ruffle his slumbers, though he was lying upon it, nor

awaken one man of all that troop; for he wished to assure his mistress

not only by report but by some token. With equal address he filched the

letter entrusted to Amleth from the coffer in which it was kept. When

these things were brought to the queen, she scanned the shield narrowly,

and from the notes appended made out the whole argument. Then she knew

that here was the man who, trusting in his own nicely calculated scheme,

had avenged on his uncle the murder of his father. She also looked at

the letter containing the suit for her band, and rubbed out all the

writing; for wedlock with the old she utterly abhorred, and desired

the embraces of young men. But she wrote in its place a commission

purporting to be sent from the King of Britain to herself, signed like

the other with his name and title, wherein she pretended that she was

asked to marry the bearer. Moreover, she included an account of the

deeds of which she had learnt from Amleth's shield, so that one would

have thought the shield confirmed the letter, while the letter explained

the shield. Then she told the same spies whom she had employed before to

take the shield back, and put the letter in its place again; playing the

very trick on Amleth which, as she had learnt, he had himself used in

outwitting his companions.

Amleth, meanwhile, who found that his shield had been filched from under

his head, deliberately shut his eyes and cunningly feigned sleep, hoping

to regain by pretended what he had lost by real slumbers. For he thought

that the success of his one attempt would incline the spy to deceive

him a second time. And he was not mistaken. For as the spy came up

stealthily, and wanted to put back the shield and the writing in their

old place, Amleth leapt up, seized him, and detained him in bonds.

Then he roused his retinue, and went to the abode of the queen. As

representing his father-in-law, he greeted her, and handled her

the writing, sealed with the king's seal. The queen, who was named

Hermutrude, took and read it, and spoke most warmly of Amleth's

diligence and shrewdness, saying, that Feng had deserved his punishment,

and that the unfathomable wit of Amleth had accomplished a deed past

all human estimation; seeing that not only had his impenetrable

depth devised a mode of revenging his father's death and his mother's

adultery, but it had further, by his notable deeds Of prowess, seized

the kingdom of the man whom he had found constantly plotting against

him. She marvelled therefore that a man of such instructed mind could

have made the one slip of a mistaken marriage; for though his renown

almost rose above mortality, he seemed to have stumbled into an obscure

and ignoble match. For the parents of his wife had been slaves, though

good luck had graced them with the honours of royalty. Now (said she),

when looking for a wife a wise man must reckon the lustre of her birth

and not of her beauty. Therefore, if he were to seek a match in a proper

spirit, he should weigh the ancestry, and not be smitten by the looks;

for though looks were a lure to temptation, yet their empty bedizenment

had tarnished the white simplicity of many a man. Now there was a woman,

as nobly born as himself, whom he could take. She herself, whose means

were not poor nor her birth lowly, was worthy his embraces, since he did

not surpass her in royal wealth nor outshine her in the honour of his

ancestors. Indeed she was a queen, and but that her sex gainsaid it,

might be deemed a king; may (and this is yet truer), whomsoever she

thought worthy of her bed was at once a king, and she yielded her

kingdom with herself. Thus her sceptre and her hand went together. It

was no mean favour for such a woman to offer her love, who in the case

of other men had always followed her refusal with the sword. Therefore

she pressed him to transfer his wooing, to make over to her his marriage

vows, and to learn to prefer birth to beauty. So saying, she fell upon

him with a close embrace.

Amleth was overjoyed at the gracious speech of the maiden, fell to

kissing back, and returned her close embrace, protesting that the

maiden's wish was his own. Then a banquet was held, friends bidden,

the nobles gathered, and the marriage rites performed. When they were

accomplished, he went back to Britain with his bride, a strong band of

Scots being told to follow close behind, that he might have its help

against the diverse treacheries in his path. As he was returning, the

daughter of the King of Britain, to whom he was still married, met him.

Though she complained that she was slighted by the wrong of having a

paramour put over her, yet, she said, it would be unworthy for her to

hate him as an adulterer more than she loved him as a husband: nor would

she so far shrink from her lord as to bring herself to hide in silence

the guile which she knew was intended against him. For she had a son as

a pledge of their marriage, and regard for him, if nothing else, must

have inclined his mother to the affection of a wife. "He," she said,

"may hate the supplanter of his mother, I will love her; no disaster

shall put out my flame for thee; no ill-will shall quench it, or prevent

me from exposing the malignant designs against thee, or from revealing

the snares I have detected. Bethink thee, then, that thou must beware

of thy father-in-law, for thou hast thyself reaped the harvest of

thy mission, foiled the wishes of him who sent thee, and with willful

trespass seized over all the fruit for thyself." By this speech she

showed herself more inclined to love her husband than her father.

While she thus spoke, the King of Britain came up and embraced his

son-in-law closely, but with little love, and welcomed him with a

banquet, to hide his intended guile under a show of generosity. But

Amleth, having learnt the deceit, dissembled his fear, took a retinue of

two hundred horsemen, put on an under-shirt (of mail), and complied

with the invitation, preferring the peril of falling in with the king's

deceit to the shame of hanging back. So much heed for honour did he

think that he must take in all things. As he rode up close, the king

attacked him just under the porch of the folding doors, and would have

thrust him through with his javelin, but that the hard shirt of mail

threw off the blade. Amleth received a slight wound, and went to the

spot where he had bidden the Scottish warriors wait on duty. He then

sent back to the king his new wife's spy, whom he had captured. This man

was to bear witness that he had secretly taken from the coffer where it

was kept the letter which was meant for his mistress, and thus was

to make the whole blame recoil on Hermutrude, by this studied excuse

absolving Amleth from the charge of treachery. The king without tarrying

pursued Amleth hotly as he fled, and deprived him of most of his forces.

So Amleth, on the morrow, wishing to fight for dear life, and utterly

despairing of his powers of resistance, tried to increase his apparent

numbers. He put stakes under some of the dead bodies of his comrades to

prop them up, set others on horseback like living men, and tied others

to neighbouring stones, not taking off any of their armour, and dressing

them in due order of line and wedge, just as if they were about to

engage. The wing composed of the dead was as thick as the troop of the

living. It was an amazing spectacle this, of dead men dragged out to

battle, and corpses mustered to fight. The plan served him well, for the

very figures of the dead men showed like a vast array as the sunbeams

struck them. For those dead and senseless shapes restored the original

number of the army so well, that the mass might have been unthinned by

the slaughter of yesterday. The Britons, terrified at the spectacle,

fled before fighting, conquered by the dead men whom they had overcome

in life. I cannot tell whether to think more of the cunning or of the

good fortune of this victory. The Danes came down on the king as he was

tardily making off, and killed him. Amleth, triumphant, made a great

plundering, seized the spoils of Britain, and went back with his wives

to his own land.

Meanwhile Rorik had died, and Wiglek, who had come to the throne, had

harassed Amleth's mother with all manner of insolence and stripped her

of her royal wealth, complaining that her son had usurped the kingdom of

Jutland and defrauded the King of Leire, who had the sole privilege of

giving and taking away the rights of high offices. This treatment Amleth

took with such forbearance as apparently to return kindness for slander,

for he presented Wiglek with the richest of his spoils. But afterwards

he seized a chance of taking vengeance, attacked him, subdued him, and

from a covert became an open foe. Fialler, the governor of Skaane, he

drove into exile; and the tale is that Fialler retired to a spot

called Undensakre, which is unknown to our peoples. After this,

Wiglek, recruited with the forces of Skaane and Zealand, sent envoys to

challenge Amleth to a war. Amleth, with his marvellous shrewdness,

saw that he was tossed between two difficulties, one of which involved

disgrace and the other danger. For he knew that if he took up the

challenge he was threatened with peril of his life, while to shrink from

it would disgrace his reputation as a soldier. Yet in that spirit ever

fixed on deeds of prowess the desire to save his honour won the day.

Dread of disaster was blunted by more vehement thirst for glory; he

would not tarnish the unblemished lustre of his fame by timidly skulking

from his fate. Also he saw that there is almost as wide a gap between a

mean life and a noble death as that which is acknowledged between honour

and disgrace themselves.

Yet Amleth was enchained by such great love for Hermutrude, that he was

more deeply concerned in his mind about her future widowhood than about

his own death, and cast about very zealously how he could decide on

some second husband for her before the opening of the war. Hermutrude,

therefore, declared that she had the courage of a man, and promised that

she would not forsake him even on the field, saying that the woman who

dreaded to be united with her lord in death was abominable. But she

kept this rare promise ill; for when Amleth had been slain by Wiglek in

battle in Jutland, she yielded herself up unasked to be the conqueror's

spoil and bride. Thus all vows of woman are loosed by change of fortune

and melted by the shifting of time; the faith of their soul rests on a

slippery foothold, and is weakened by casual chances; glib in promises,

and as sluggish in performance, all manner of lustful promptings enslave

it, and it bounds away with panting and precipitate desire, forgetful

of old things in the ever hot pursuit after something fresh. So ended

Amleth. Had fortune been as kind to him as nature, he would have

equalled the gods in glory, and surpassed the labours of Hercules by his

deeds of prowess. A plain in Jutland is to be found, famous for his name

and burial-place. Wiglek's administration of the kingdom was long and

peaceful, and he died of disease.

WERMUND, his son, succeeded him. The long and leisurely tranquillity of

a most prosperous and quiet time flowed by and Wermund in undisturbed

security maintained a prolonged and steady peace at home. He had no

children during the prime of his life, but in his old age, by a belated

gift of fortune, he begat a son, Uffe, though all the years which had

glided by had raised him up no offspring. This Uffe surpassed all of his

age in stature, but in his early youth was supposed to have so dull and

foolish a spirit as to be useless for all affairs public or private.

For from his first years he never used to play or make merry, but was so

void of all human pleasure that he kept his lips sealed in a perennial

silence, and utterly restrained his austere visage from the business of

laughter. But though through the years of his youth he was reputed

for an utter fool, he afterwards left that despised estate and became

famous, turning out as great a pattern of wisdom and hardihood as he had

been a picture of stagnation. His father, seeing him such a simpleton,

got him for a wife the daughter of Frowin, the governor of the men of

Sleswik; thinking that by his alliance with so famous a man Uffe would

receive help which would serve him well in administering the realm.

Frowin had two sons, Ket and Wig, who were youths of most brilliant

parts, and their excellence, not less than that of Frowin, Wermund

destined to the future advantage of his son.

At this time the King of Sweden was Athisl, a man of notable fame and

energy. After defeating his neighbours far around, he was loth to leave

the renown won by his prowess to be tarnished in slothful ease, and by

constant and zealous practice brought many novel exercises into vogue.

For one thing he had a daily habit of walking alone girt with splendid

armour: in part because he knew that nothing was more excellent in

warfare than the continual practice of arms; and in part that he might

swell his glory by ever following this pursuit. Self-confidence claimed

as large a place in this man as thirst for fame. Nothing, he thought,

could be so terrible as to make him afraid that it would daunt his

stout heart by its opposition. He carried his arms into Denmark, and

challenged Frowin to battle near Sleswik. The armies routed one another

with vast slaughter, and it happened that the generals came to engage in

person, so that they conducted the affair like a duel; and, in addition

to the public issues of the war, the fight was like a personal conflict.

For both of them longed with equal earnestness for an issue of the

combat by which they might exhibit their valour, not by the help of

their respective sides, but by a trial of personal strength. The end was

that, though the blows rained thick on either side, Athisl prevailed and

overthrew Frowin, and won a public victory as well as a duel, breaking

up and shattering the Danish ranks in all directions. When he returned

to Sweden, he not only counted the slaying of Frowin among the trophies

of his valour, but even bragged of it past measure, so ruining the glory

of the deed by his wantonness of tongue. For it is sometimes handsomer

for deeds of valour to be shrouded in the modesty of silence than to be

blazoned in wanton talk.

Wermund raised the sons of Frowin to honours of the same rank as their

father's, a kindness which was only due to the children of his friend

who had died for the country. This prompted Athisl to carry the war

again into Denmark. Emboldened therefore by his previous battle, he

called back, bringing with him not only no slender and feeble force,

but all the flower of the valour of Sweden, thinking he would seize the

supremacy of all Denmark. Ket, the son of Frowin, sent Folk, his chief

officer, to take this news to Wermund, who then chanced to be in his

house Jellinge. (1) Folk found the king feasting with his friends, and

did his errand, admonishing him that here was the long-wished-for chance

of war at hand, and pressing itself upon the wishes of Wermund, to whom

was give an immediate chance of victory and the free choice of a speedy

and honourable triumph. Great and unexpected were the sweets of good

fortune, so long sighed for, and now granted to him by this lucky event.

For Athisl had come encompassed with countless forces of the Swedes,

just as though in his firm assurance he had made sure of victory; and

since the enemy who was going to fight would doubtless prefer death to

flight, this chance of war gave them a fortunate opportunity to take

vengeance for their late disaster.

Wermund, declaring that he had performed his mission nobly and bravely,

ordered that he should take some little refreshment of the banquet,

since "far-faring ever hurt fasters." When Folk said that he had no kind

of leisure to take food, he begged him to take a draught to quench his

thirst. This was given him; and Wermund also bade him keep the cup,

which was of gold, saying that men who were weary with the heat of

wayfaring found it handier to take up the water in a goblet than in the

palms, and that it was better to use a cup for drinking than the hand.

When the king accompanied his great gift with such gracious words, the

young man, overjoyed at both, promised that, before the king should see

him turn and flee, he would take a draught of his own blood to the full

measure of the liquor he had drunk.

With this doughty vow Wermund accounted himself well repaid, and got

somewhat more joy from giving the boon than the soldier had from gaining

it. Nor did he find that Folk's talk was braver than his fighting.

For, when battle had begun, it came to pass that amidst divers charges

of the troops Folk and Athisl met and fought a long while together; and

that the host of the Swedes, following the fate of their captain, took

to flight, and Athisl also was wounded and fled from the battle to his

ships. And when Folk, dazed with wounds and toils, and moreover steeped

alike in heat and toil and thirst, had ceased to follow the rout of the

enemy, then, in order to refresh himself, he caught his own blood in

his helmet, and put it to his lips to drain: by which deed he gloriously

requited the king's gift of the cup. Wermund, who chanced to see this,

praised him warmly for fulfilling his vow. Folk answered, that a noble

vow ought to be strictly performed to the end: a speech wherein he

showed no less approval of his own deed than Wermund.

Now, while the conquerors had laid down their arms, and, as is usual

after battle, were exchanging diverse talk with one another, Ket, the

governor of the men of Sleswik, declared that it was a matter of great

marvel to him how it was that Athisl, though difficulties strewed his

path, had contrived an opportunity to escape, especially as he had been

the first and foremost in the battle, but last of all in the retreat;

and though there had not been one of the enemy whose fall was so

vehemently desired by the Danes. Wermund rejoined that he should know

that there were four kinds of warrior to be distinguished in every army.

The fighters of the first order were those who, tempering valour with

forbearance, were keen to slay those who resisted, but were ashamed to

bear hard on fugitives. For these were the men who had won undoubted

proofs of prowess by veteran experience in arms, and who found their

glory not in the flight of the conquered, but in overcoming those whom

they had to conquer. Then there was a second kind of warriors, who were

endowed with stout frame and spirit, but with no jot of compassion, and

who raged with savage and indiscriminate carnage against the backs as

well as the breasts of their foes. Now of this sort were the men carried

away by hot and youthful blood, and striving to grace their first

campaign with good auguries of warfare. They burned as hotly with the

glow of youth as with the glow for glory, and thus rushed headlong into

right or wrong with equal recklessness. There was also the third kind,

who, wavering betwixt shame and fear, could not go forward for terror,

while shame barred retreat. Of distinguished blood, but only notable for

their useless stature, they crowded the ranks with numbers and not with

strength, smote the foe more with their shadows than with their arms,

and were only counted among the throng of warriors as so many bodies

to be seen. These men were lords of great riches, but excelled more in

birth than bravery; hungry for life because owning great possessions,

they were forced to yield to the sway of cowardice rather than

nobleness. There were others, again, who brought show to the war, and

not substance, and who, foisting themselves into the rear of their

comrades, were the first to fly and the last to fight. One sure token

of fear betrayed their feebleness; for they always deliberately sought

excuses to shirk, and followed with timid and sluggish advance in the

rear of the fighters. It must be supposed, therefore, that these were

the reasons why the king had escaped safely; for when he fled he was not

pursued pertinaciously by the men of the front rank; since these made it

their business to preserve the victory, not to arrest the conquered, and

massed their wedges, in order that the fresh-won victory might be duly

and sufficiently guarded, and attain the fulness of triumph.

Now the second class of fighters, whose desire was to cut down

everything in their way, had left Athisl unscathed, from lack not of

will but of opportunity; for they had lacked the chance to hurt him

rather than the daring. Moreover, though the men of the third kind, who

frittered away the very hour of battle by wandering about in a flurried

fashion, and also hampered the success of their own side, had had their

chance of harming the king, they yet lacked courage to assail him. In

this way Wermund satisfied the dull amazement of Ket, and declared

that he had set forth and expounded the true reasons of the king's safe

escape.

After this Athisl fled back to Sweden, still wantonly bragging of the

slaughter of Frowin, and constantly boasting the memory of his exploit

with prolix recital of his deeds; not that he bore calmly the shame of

his defeat, but that he might salve the wound of his recent flight by

the honours of his ancient victory. This naturally much angered Ket and

Wig, and they swore a vow to unite in avenging their father. Thinking

that they could hardly accomplish this in open war, they took an

equipment of lighter armament, and went to Sweden alone. Then, entering

a wood in which they had learnt by report that the king used to take his

walks unaccompanied, they hid their weapons. Then they talked long with

Athisl, giving themselves out as deserters; and when he asked them what

was their native country, they said they were men of Sleswik, and had

left their land "for manslaughter". The king thought that this statement

referred not to their vow to commit the crime, but to the guilt of some

crime already committed. For they desired by this deceit to foil his

inquisitiveness, so that the truthfulness of the statement might

baffle the wit of the questioner, and their true answer, being covertly

shadowed forth in a fiction, might inspire in him a belief that it was

false. For famous men of old thought lying a most shameful thing. Then

Athisl said he would like to know whom the Danes believed to be the

slayer of Frowin. Ket replied that there was a doubt as to who ought

to claim so illustrious a deed, especially as the general testimony was

that he had perished on the field of battle. Athisl answered that it was

idle to credit others with the death of Frowin, which he, and he alone,

had accomplished in mutual combat. Soon he asked whether Frowin had left

any children. Ket answering that two sons of his were alive, said that

he would be very glad to learn their age and stature. Ket replied that

they were almost of the same size as themselves in body, alike in years,

and much resembling them in tallness. Then Athisl said: "If the mind and

the valour of their sire were theirs, a bitter tempest would break upon

me." Then he asked whether those men constantly spoke of the slaying of

their father. Ket rejoined that it was idle to go on talking and talking

about a thing that could not be softened by any remedy, and declared

that it was no good to harp with constant vexation on an inexpiable ill.

By saying this he showed that threats ought not to anticipate vengeance.

When Ket saw that the king regularly walked apart alone in order to

train his strength, he took up his arms, and with his brother followed

the king as he walked in front of them. Athisl, when he saw them, stood

his ground on the sand, thinking it shameful to avoid threateners. Then

they said that they would take vengeance for his slaying of Frowin,

especially as he avowed with so many arrogant vaunts that he alone was

his slayer. But he told them to take heed lest while they sought to

compass their revenge, they should be so foolhardy as to engage him with

their feeble and powerless hand, and while desiring the destruction of

another, should find they had fallen themselves. Thus they would cut off

their goodly promise of overhasty thirst for glory. Let them then save

their youth and spare their promise; let them not be seized so lightly

with a desire to perish. Therefore, let them suffer him to requite with

money the trespass done them in their father's death, and account it

great honour that they would be credited with forcing so mighty a chief

to pay a fine, and in a manner with shaking him with overmastering fear.

Yet he said he advised them thus, not because he was really terrified,

but because he was moved with compassion for their youth. Ket replied

that it was idle to waste time in beating so much about the bush and

trying to sap their righteous longing for revenge by an offer of pelf.

So he bade him come forward and make trial with him in single combat

of whatever strength he had. He himself would do without the aid of his

brother, and would fight with his own strength, lest it should appear a

shameful and unequal combat, for the ancients held it to be unfair, and

also infamous, for two men to fight against one; and a victory gained by

this kind of fighting they did not account honourable, but more like a

disgrace than a glory. Indeed, it was considered not only a poor, but a

most shameful exploit for two men to overpower one.

But Athisl was filled with such assurance that he bade them both assail

him at once, declaring that if he could not cure them of the desire to

fight, he would at least give them the chance of fighting more safely.

But Ket shrank so much from this favour that he swore he would accept

death sooner: for he thought that the terms of battle thus offered would

be turned into a reproach to himself. So he engaged hotly with Athisl,

who desirous to fight him in a forbearing fashion, merely thrust lightly

with his blade and struck upon his shield; thus guarding his own safety

with more hardihood than success. When he had done this some while, he

advised him to take his brother to share in his enterprise, and not be

ashamed to ask for the help of another hand, since his unaided efforts

were useless. If he refused, said Athisl, he should not be spared; then

making good his threats, he assailed him with all his might. But Ket

received him with so sturdy a stroke of his sword, that it split the

helmet and forced its way down upon the head. Stung by the wound (for a

stream of blood flowed from his poll), he attacked Ket with a shower of

nimble blows, and drove him to his knees. Wig, leaning more to personal

love than to general usage, (2) could not bear the sight, but made

affection conquer shame, and attacking Athisl, chose rather to defend

the weakness of his brother than to look on at it. But he won more

infamy than glory by the deed. In helping his brother he had violated

the appointed conditions of the duel; and the help that he gave him was

thought more useful than honourable. For on the one scale he inclined to

the side of disgrace, and on the other to that of affection. Thereupon

they perceived themselves that their killing of Athisl had been more

swift than glorious. Yet, not to hide the deed from the common people,

they cut off his head, slung his body on a horse, took it out of the

wood, and handed it over to the dwellers in a village near, announcing

that the sons of Frowin had taken vengeance upon Athisl, King of the

Swedes, for the slaying of their father. Boasting of such a victory as

this, they were received by Wermund with the highest honours; for he

thought they had done a most useful deed, and he preferred to regard

the glory of being rid of a rival with more attention than the infamy of

committing an outrage. Nor did he judge that the killing of a tyrant was

in any wise akin to shame. It passed into a proverb among foreigners,

that the death of the king had broken down the ancient principle of

combat.

When Wermund was losing his sight by infirmity of age, the King of

Saxony, thinking that Denmark lacked a leader, sent envoys ordering him

to surrender to his charge the kingdom which he held beyond the due term

of life; lest, if he thirsted to hold sway too long, he should strip his

country of laws and defence. For how could he be reckoned a king, whose

spirit was darkened with age, and his eyes with blindness not less black

and awful? If he refused, but yet had a son who would dare to accept a

challenge and fight with his son, let him agree that the victor should

possess the realm. But if he approved neither offer, let him learn that

he must be dealt with by weapons and not by warnings; and in the end

he must unwillingly surrender what he was too proud at first to yield

uncompelled. Wermund, shaken by deep sighs, answered that it was too

insolent to sting him with these taunts upon his years; for he had

passed no timorous youth, nor shrunk from battle, that age should bring

him to this extreme misery. It was equally unfitting to cast in his

teeth the infirmity of his blindness: for it was common for a loss

of this kind to accompany such a time of life as his, and it seemed a

calamity fitter for sympathy than for taunts. It were juster to fix

the blame on the impatience of the King of Saxony, whom it would have

beseemed to wait for the old man's death, and not demand his throne; for

it was somewhat better to succeed to the dead than to rob the living.

Yet, that he might not be thought to make over the honours of his

ancient freedom, like a madman, to the possession of another, he would

accept the challenge with his own hand. The envoys answered that they

knew that their king would shrink from the mockery of fighting a blind

man, for such an absurd mode of combat was thought more shameful than

honourable. It would surely be better to settle the affair by means of

their offspring on either side. The Danes were in consternation, and at

a sudden loss for a reply: but Uffe, who happened to be there with the

rest, craved his father's leave to answer; and suddenly the dumb as it

were spake. When Wermund asked who had thus begged leave to speak, and

the attendants said that it was Uffe, he declared that it was enough

that the insolent foreigner should jeer at the pangs of his misery,

without those of his own household vexing him with the same wanton

effrontery. But the courtiers persistently averred that this man was

Uffe; and the king said: "He is free, whosoever he be, to say out what

he thinks." Then said Uffe, "that it was idle for their king to covet

a realm which could rely not only on the service of its own ruler, but

also on the arms and wisdom of most valiant nobles. Moreover, the king

did not lack a son nor the kingdom an heir; and they were to know that

he had made up his mind to fight not only the son of their king, but

also, at the same time, whatsoever man the prince should elect as his

comrade out of the bravest of their nation."

The envoys laughed when they beard this, thinking it idle lip-courage.

Instantly the ground for the battle was agreed on, and a fixed time

appointed. But the bystanders were so amazed by the strangeness of

Uffe's speaking and challenging, that one can scarce say if they were

more astonished at his words or at his assurance.

But on the departure of the envoys Wermund praised him who had made

the answer, because he had proved his confidence in his own valour by

challenging not one only, but two; and said that he would sooner quit

his kingdom for him, whoever he was, than for an insolent foe. But when

one and all testified that he who with lofty self-confidence had spurned

the arrogance of the envoys was his own son, he bade him come nearer

to him, wishing to test with his hands what he could not with his eyes.

Then he carefully felt his body, and found by the size of his limbs and

by his features that he was his son; and then began to believe their

assertions, and to ask him why he had taken pains to hide so sweet an

eloquence with such careful dissembling, and had borne to live through

so long a span of life without utterance or any intercourse of talk, so

as to let men think him utterly incapable of speech, and a born mute. He

replied that he had been hitherto satisfied with the protection of his

father, that he had not needed the use of his own voice, until he saw

the wisdom of his own land hard pressed by the glibness of a foreigner.

The king also asked him why he had chosen to challenge two rather than

one. He said he had desired this mode of combat in order that the death

of King Athisl, which, having been caused by two men, was a standing

reproach to the Danes, might be balanced by the exploit of one, and

that a new ensample of valour might erase the ancient record of their

disgrace. Fresh honour, he said, would thus obliterate the guilt of

their old dishonour.

Wermund said that his son had judged all things rightly, and bade him

first learn the use of arms, since he had been little accustomed to

them. When they were offered to Uffe, he split the narrow links of the

mail-coats by the mighty girth of his chest, nor could any be found

large enough to hold him properly. For he was too hugely built to be

able to use the arms of any other man. At last, when he was bursting

even his father's coat of mail by the violent compression of his body,

Wermund ordered it to be cut away on the left side and patched with a

buckle; thinking it mattered little if the side guarded by the shield

were exposed to the sword. He also told him to be most careful in fixing

on a sword which he could use safely. Several were offered him; but

Uffe, grasping the hilt, shattered them one after the other into

flinders by shaking them, and not a single blade was of so hard a temper

but at the first blow he broke it into many pieces. But the king had a

sword of extraordinary sharpness, called "Skrep", which at a single blow

of the smiter struck straight through and cleft asunder any obstacle

whatsoever; nor would aught be hard enough to check its edge when driven

home. The king, loth to leave this for the benefit of posterity, and

greatly grudging others the use of it, had buried it deep in the earth,

meaning, since he had no hopes of his son's improvement, to debar

everyone else from using it. But when he was now asked whether he had a

sword worthy of the strength of Uffe, he said that he had one which, if

he could recognize the lie of the ground and find what he had consigned

long ago to earth, he could offer him as worthy of his bodily strength.

Then he bade them lead him into a field, and kept questioning his

companions over all the ground. At last he recognised the tokens, found

the spot where he had buried the sword, drew it out of its hole, and

handed it to his son. Uffe saw it was frail with great age and rusted

away; and, not daring to strike with it, asked if he must prove this

one also like the rest, declaring that he must try its temper before

the battle ought to be fought. Wermund replied that if this sword were

shattered by mere brandishing, there was nothing left which could serve

for such strength as his. He must, therefore, forbear from the act,

whose issue remained so doubtful.

So they repaired to the field of battle as agreed. It is fast

encompassed by the waters of the river Eider, which roll between, and

forbid any approach save by ship. Hither Uffe went unattended, while

the Prince of Saxony was followed by a champion famous for his strength.

Dense crowds on either side, eager to see, thronged each winding bank,

and all bent their eyes upon this scene. Wermund planted himself on the

end of the bridge, determined to perish in the waters if defeat were

the lot of his son: he would rather share the fall of his own flesh and

blood than behold, with heart full of anguish, the destruction of his

own country. Both the warriors assaulted Uffe; but, distrusting his

sword, he parried the blows of both with his shield, being determined

to wait patiently and see which of the two he must beware of most

heedfully, so that he might reach that one at all events with a single

stroke of his blade. Wermund, thinking that his feebleness was at fault,

that he took the blows so patiently, dragged himself little by little,

in his longing for death, forward to the western edge of the bridge,

meaning to fling himself down and perish, should all be over with his

son.

Fortune shielded the old father, for Uffe told the prince to engage with

him more briskly, and to do some deed of prowess worthy of his famous

race; lest the lowborn squire should seem braver than the prince. Then,

in order to try the bravery of the champion, he bade him not skulk

timorously at his master's heels, but requite by noble deeds of combat

the trust placed in him by his prince, who had chosen him to be his

single partner in the battle. The other complied, and when shame drove

him to fight at close quarters, Uffe clove him through with the first

stroke of his blade. The sound revived Wermund, who said that he heard

the sword of his son, and asked "on what particular part he had dealt

the blow?" Then the retainers answered that it had gone through no one

limb, but the man's whole frame; whereat Wermund drew back from the

precipice and came on the bridge, longing now as passionately to live as

he had just wished to die. Then Uffe, wishing to destroy his remaining

foe after the fashion of the first, incited the prince with vehement

words to offer some sacrifice by way of requital to the shade of the

servant slain in his cause. Drawing him by those appeals, and warily

noting the right spot to plant his blow, he turned the other edge of

his sword to the front, fearing that the thin side of his blade was too

frail for his strength, and smote with a piercing stroke through the

prince's body. When Wermund heard it, he said that the sound of his

sword "Skrep" had reached his ear for the second time. Then, when the

judges announced that his son had killed both enemies, he burst into

tears from excess of joy. Thus gladness bedewed the cheeks which sorrow

could not moisten. So while the Saxons, sad and shamefaced, bore their

champions to burial with bitter shame, the Danes welcomed Uffe and

bounded for joy. Then no more was heard of the disgrace of the murder of

Athisl, and there was an end of the taunts of the Saxons.

Thus the realm of Saxony was transferred to the Danes, and Uffe, after

his father, undertook its government; and he, who had not been thought

equal to administering a single kingdom properly, was now appointed to

manage both. Most men have called him Olaf, and he has won the name

of "the Gentle" for his forbearing spirit. His later deeds, lost in

antiquity, have lacked formal record. But it may well be supposed that

when their beginnings were so notable, their sequel was glorious. I am

so brief in considering his doings, because the lustre of the famous

men of our nation has been lost to memory and praise by the lack of

writings. But if by good luck our land had in old time been endowed with

the Latin tongue, there would have been countless volumes to read of the

exploits of the Danes.

Uffe was succeeded by his son DAN, who carried his arms against

foreigners, and increased his sovereignty with many a trophy; but he

tarnished the brightness of the glory he had won by foul and abominable

presumption; falling so far away from the honour of his famous father,

who surpassed all others in modesty, that he contrariwise was puffed up

and proudly exalted in spirit, so that he scorned all other men. He

also squandered the goods of his father on infamies, as well as his

own winnings from the spoils of foreign nations; and he devoured in

expenditure on luxuries the wealth which should have ministered to his

royal estate. Thus do sons sometimes, like monstrous births, degenerate

from their ancestors.

After this HUGLEIK was king, who is said to have defeated in battle at

sea Homod and Hogrim, the despots of Sweden.

To him succeeded FRODE, surnamed the Vigorous, who bore out his name by

the strength of his body and mind. He destroyed in war ten captains of

Norway, and finally approached the island which afterwards had its name

from him, meaning to attack the king himself last of all. This king,

Froger, was in two ways very distinguished, being notable in arms no

less than in wealth; and graced his sovereignty with the deeds of a

champion, being as rich in prizes for bodily feats as in the honours of

rank. According to some, he was the son of Odin, and when he begged the

immortal gods to grant him a boon, received the privilege that no man

should conquer him, save he who at the time of the conflict could catch

up in his hand the dust lying beneath Froger's feet. When Frode found

that Heaven had endowed this king with such might, he challenged him to

a duel, meaning to try to outwit the favour of the gods. So at first,

feigning inexperience, he besought the king for a lesson in fighting,

knowing (he said) his skill and experience in the same. The other,

rejoicing that his enemy not only yielded to his pretensions, but even

made him a request, said that he was wise to submit his youthful mind to

an old man's wisdom; for his unscarred face and his brow, ploughed by

no marks of battle, showed that his knowledge of such matters was but

slender. So he marked off on the ground two square spaces with sides

an ell long, opposite one another, meaning to begin by instructing him

about the use of these plots. When they had been marked off, each took

the side assigned to him. Then Frode asked Froger to exchange arms and

ground with him, and the request was readily granted. For Froger was

excited with the dashing of his enemy's arms, because Frode wore a

gold-hilted sword, a breastplate equally bright, and a headpiece most

brilliantly adorned in the same manner. So Frode caught up some dust

from the ground whence Froger had gone, and thought that he had been

granted an omen of victory. Nor was he deceived in his presage; for he

straightway slew Froger, and by this petty trick won the greatest name

for bravery; for he gained by craft what had been permitted to no man's

strength before.

After him DAN came to the throne. When he was in the twelfth year of his

age, he was wearied by the insolence of the embassies, which commanded

him either to fight the Saxons or to pay them tribute. Ashamed, he

preferred fighting to payment and was moved to die stoutly rather than

live a coward. So he elected to fight; and the warriors of the Danes

filled the Elbe with such a throng of vessels, that the decks of the

ships lashed together made it quite easy to cross, as though along a

continuous bridge. The end was that the King of Saxony had to accept the

very terms he was demanding from the Danes.

After Dan, FRIDLEIF, surnamed the Swift, assumed the sovereignty. During

his reign, Huyrwil, the lord of Oland, made a league with the Danes and

attacked Norway. No small fame was added to his deeds by the defeat

of the amazon Rusila, who aspired with military ardour to prowess in

battle: but he gained manly glory over a female foe. Also he took into

his alliance, on account of their deeds of prowess, her five partners,

the children of Finn, named Brodd, Bild, Bug, Fanning, and Gunholm.

Their confederacy emboldened him to break the treaty which he made

with the Danes; and the treachery of the violation made it all the

more injurious, for the Danes could not believe that he could turn

so suddenly from a friend into an enemy; so easily can some veer from

goodwill into hate. I suppose that this man inaugurated the morals of

our own day, for we do not account lying and treachery as sinful and

sordid. When Huyrwil attacked the southern side of Zealand, Fridleif

assailed him in the harbour which was afterwards called by Huyrwil's

name. In this battle the soldiers, in their rivalry for glory, engaged

with such bravery that very few fled to escape peril, and both armies

were utterly destroyed; nor did the victory fall to either side, where

both were enveloped in an equal ruin. So much more desirous were they

all of glory than of life. So the survivors of Huyrwil's army, in order

to keep united, had the remnants of their fleet lashed together at

night. But, in the same night, Bild and Brodd cut the cables with which

the ships were joined, and stealthily severed their own vessels from the

rest, thus yielding to their own terrors by deserting their brethren,

and obeying the impulses of fear rather than fraternal love. When

daylight returned, Fridleif, finding that after the great massacre

of their friends only Huyrwil, Gunholm, Bug, and Fanning were left,

determined to fight them all single-handed, so that the mangled relics

of his fleet might not again have to be imperilled. Besides his innate

courage, a shirt of steel-defying mail gave him confidence; a garb which

he used to wear in all public battles and in duels, as a preservative of

his life. He accomplished his end with as much fortune as courage, and

ended the battle successfully. For, after slaying Huyrwil, Bug, and

Fanning, he killed Gunholm, who was accustomed to blunt the blade of

an enemy with spells, by a shower of blows from his hilt. But while

he gripped the blade too eagerly, the sinews, being cut and disabled,

contracted the fingers upon the palm, and cramped them with life-long

curvature.

While Fridleif was besieging Dublin, a town in Ireland, and saw from

the strength of the walls that there was no chance of storming them, he

imitated the shrewd wit of Hadding, and ordered fire to be shut up in

wicks and fastened to the wings of swallows. When the birds got back in

their own nesting-place, the dwellings suddenly flared up; and while the

citizens all ran up to quench them, and paid more heed to abating the

fire than to looking after the enemy, Fridleif took Dublin. After this

he lost his soldiers in Britain, and, thinking that he would find

it hard to get back to the coast, he set up the corpses of the slain

(Amleth's device) and stationed them in line, thus producing so nearly

the look of his original host that its great reverse seemed not to have

lessened the show of it a whit. By this deed he not only took out of the

enemy all heart for fighting, but inspired them with the desire to make

their escape.

ENDNOTES:

(1) Jellinge. Lat. "Ialunga", Icel. "Jalangr".

(2) General usage. "publicus consuetudini": namely, the rule of

combat that two should not fight against one.

BOOK FIVE.

After the death of Fridleif, his son FRODE, aged seven, was elected

in his stead by the unanimous decision of the Danes. But they held an

assembly first, and judged that the minority of the king should be taken

in charge by guardians, lest the sovereignty should pass away owing to

the boyishness of the ruler. For one and all paid such respect to the

name and memory of Fridleif, that the royalty was bestowed on his son

despite his tender years. So a selection was made, and the brothers

Westmar and Koll were summoned to the charge of bringing up the king.

Isulf, also, and Agg and eight other men of mark were not only entrusted

with the guardianship of the king, but also granted authority to

administer the realm under him. These men were rich in strength and

courage, and endowed with ample gifts of mind as well as of body. Thus

the state of the Danes was governed with the aid of regents until the

time when the king should be a man.

The wife of Koll was Gotwar, who used to paralyse the most eloquent and

fluent men by her glib and extraordinary insolence; for she was potent

in wrangling, and full of resource in all kinds of disputation. Words

were her weapons; and she not only trusted in questions, but was armed

with stubborn answers. No man could subdue this woman, who could not

fight, but who found darts in her tongue instead. Some she would argue

down with a flood of impudent words, while others she seemed to

entangle in the meshes of her quibbles, and strangle in the noose of

her sophistries; so nimble a wit had the woman. Moreover, she was very

strong, either in making or cancelling a bargain, and the sting of

her tongue was the secret of her power in both. She was clever both at

making and at breaking leagues; thus she had two sides to her tongue,

and used it for either purpose.

Westmar had twelve sons, three of whom had the same name--Grep in

common. These three men were conceived at once and delivered at one

birth, and their common name declared their simultaneous origin. They

were exceedingly skillful swordsmen and boxers. Frode had also given the

supremacy of the sea to Odd; who was very closely related to the king.

Koll rejoiced in an offspring of three sons. At this time a certain

son of Frode's brother held the chief command of naval affairs for the

protection of the country, Now the king had a sister, Gunwar, surnamed

the Fair because of her surpassing beauty. The sons of Westmar and Koll,

being ungrown in years and bold in spirit, let their courage become

recklessness and devoted their guilt-stained minds to foul and degraded

orgies.

Their behaviour was so outrageous and uncontrollable that they ravished

other men's brides and daughters, and seemed to have outlawed chastity

and banished it to the stews. Nay, they defiled the couches of matrons,

and did not even refrain from the bed of virgins. A man's own chamber

was no safety to him: there was scarce a spot in the land but bore

traces of their lust. Husbands were vexed with fear, and wives with

insult to their persons: and to these wrongs folk bowed. No ties

were respected, and forced embraces became a common thing. Love was

prostituted, all reverence for marriage ties died out, and lust was

greedily run after. And the reason of all this was the peace; for men's

bodies lacked exercise and were enervated in the ease so propitious to

vices. At last the eldest of those who shared the name of Grep, wishing

to regulate and steady his promiscuous wantonness, ventured to seek a

haven for his vagrant amours in the love of the king's sister. Yet

he did amiss. For though it was right that his vagabond and straying

delights should be bridled by modesty, yet it was audacious for a man of

the people to covet the child of a king. She, much fearing the impudence

of her wooer, and wishing to be safer from outrage, went into a

fortified building. Thirty attendants were given to her, to keep guard

and constant watch over her person.

Now the comrades of Frode, sadly lacking the help of women in the matter

of the wear of their garments, inasmuch as they had no means of patching

or of repairing rents, advised and urged the king to marry. At first

he alleged his tender years as an excuse, but in the end yielded to the

persistent requests of his people. And when he carefully inquired of his

advisers who would be a fit wife for him, they all praised the daughter

of the King of the Huns beyond the rest. When the question was pushed,

what reason Frode had for objecting to her, he replied that he had heard

from his father that it was not expedient for kings to seek alliance far

afield, or to demand love save from neighbours. When Gotwar heard this

she knew that the king's resistance to his friends was wily. Wishing

to establish his wavering spirit, and strengthen the courage of his

weakling soul, she said: "Bridals are for young men, but the tomb awaits

the old. The steps of youth go forward in desires and in fortune; but

old age declines helpless to the sepulchre. Hope attends youth; age is

bowed with hopeless decay. The fortune of young men increases; it will

never leave unfinished what it begins." Respecting her words, he begged

her to undertake the management of the suit. But she refused, pleading

her age as her pretext, and declaring herself too stricken in years to

bear so difficult a commission. The king saw that a bribe was wanted,

and, proffering a golden necklace, promised it as the reward of her

embassy. For the necklace had links consisting of studs, and figures of

kings interspersed in bas-relief, which could be now separated and now

drawn together by pulling a thread inside; a gewgaw devised more for

luxury than use. Frode also ordered that Westmar and Koll, with their

sons, should be summoned to go on the same embassy, thinking that their

cunning would avoid the shame of a rebuff.

They went with Gotwar, and were entertained by the King of the Huns at a

three days' banquet, ere they uttered the purpose of their embassy. For

it was customary of old thus to welcome guests. When the feast had been

prolonged three days, the princess came forth to make herself pleasant

to the envoys with a most courteous address, and her blithe presence

added not a little to the festal delights of the banqueters. And as the

drink went faster Westmar revealed his purpose in due course, in a very

merry declaration, wishing to sound the mind of the maiden in talk of

a friendly sort. And, in order not to inflict on himself a rebuff,

he spoke in a mirthful vein, and broke the ground of his mission,

by venturing to make up a sportive speech amid the applause of the

revellers. The princess said that she disdained Frode because he lacked

honour and glory. For in days of old no men were thought fit for the

hand of high-born women but those who had won some great prize of glory

by the lustre of their admirable deeds. Sloth was the worst of vices in

a suitor, and nothing was more of a reproach in one who sought marriage

than the lack of fame. A harvest of glory, and that alone, could bring

wealth in everything else. Maidens admired in their wooers not so much

good looks as deeds nobly done. So the envoys, flagging and despairing

of their wish, left the further conduct of the affair to the wisdom

of Gotwar, who tried to subdue the maiden not only with words but with

love-philtres, and began to declare that Frode used his left hand as

well as his right, and was a quick and skillful swimmer and fighter.

Also by the drink which she gave she changed the strictness of the

maiden to desire, and replaced her vanished anger with love and delight.

Then she bade Westmar, Koll, and their sons go to the king and urge

their mission afresh; and finally, should they find him froward, to

anticipate a rebuff by a challenge to fight.

So Westmar entered the palace with his men-at-arms, and said: "Now thou

must needs either consent to our entreaties, or meet in battle us who

entreat thee. We would rather die nobly than go back with our mission

unperformed; lest, foully repulsed and foiled of our purpose, we should

take home disgrace where we hoped to will honour. If thou refuse thy

daughter, consent to fight: thou must needs grant one thing or

the other. We wish either to die or to have our prayers beard.

Something--sorrow if not joy--we will get from thee. Frode will be

better pleased to hear of our slaughter than of our repulse." Without

another word, he threatened to aim a blow at the king's throat with his

sword. The king replied that it was unseemly for the royal majesty

to meet an inferior in rank in level combat, and unfit that those of

unequal station should fight as equals. But when Westmar persisted in

urging him to fight, he at last bade him find out what the real mind of

the maiden was; for in old time men gave women who were to marry, free

choice of a husband. For the king was embarrassed, and hung vacillating

betwixt shame and fear of battle. Thus Westmar, having been referred

to the thoughts of the girl's heart, and knowing that every woman is as

changeable in purpose as she is fickle in soul, proceeded to fulfil his

task all the more confidently because he knew how mutable the wishes of

maidens were. His confidence in his charge was increased and his zeal

encouraged, because she had both a maiden's simplicity, which was left

to its own counsels, and a woman's freedom of choice, which must be

wheedled with the most delicate and mollifying flatteries; and thus she

would be not only easy to lead away, but even hasty in compliance. But

her father went after the envoys, that he might see more surely into his

daughter's mind. She had already been drawn by the stealthy working of

the draught to love her suitor, and answered that the promise of Frode,

rather than his present renown, had made her expect much of his nature:

since he was sprung from so famous a father, and every nature commonly

answered to its origin. The youth therefore had pleased her by her

regard of his future, rather than his present, glory. These words amazed

the father; but neither could he bear to revoke the freedom he had

granted her, and he promised her in marriage to Frode. Then, having

laid in ample stores, he took her away with the most splendid pomp, and,

followed by the envoys, hastened to Denmark, knowing that a father was

the best person to give away a daughter in marriage. Frode welcomed

his bride most joyfully, and also bestowed the highest honours upon

his future royal father-in-law; and when the marriage rites were over,

dismissed him with a large gift of gold and silver.

And so with Hanund, the daughter of the King of the Huns, for his wife,

he passed three years in the most prosperous peace. But idleness brought

wantonness among his courtiers, and peace begot lewdness, which they

displayed in the most abominable crimes. For they would draw some men

up in the air on ropes, and torment them, pushing their bodies as they

hung, like a ball that is tossed; or they would put a kid's hide under

the feet of others as they walked, and, by stealthily pulling a rope,

trip their unwary steps on the slippery skill in their path; others they

would strip of their clothes, and lash with sundry tortures of stripes;

others they fastened to pegs, as with a noose, and punished with

mock-hanging. They scorched off the beard and hair with tapers; of

others they burned the hair of the groin with a brand. Only those

maidens might marry whose chastity they had first deflowered. Strangers

they battered with bones; others they compelled to drunkenness with

immoderate draughts, and made them burst. No man might give his daughter

to wife unless he had first bought their favour and goodwill. None might

contract any marriage without first purchasing their consent with a

bribe. Moreover, they extended their abominable and abandoned lust not

only to virgins, but to the multitude of matrons indiscriminately. Thus

a twofold madness incited this mixture of wantonness and frenzy. Guests

and strangers were proffered not shelter but revilings. All these

maddening mockeries did this insolent and wanton crew devise, and thus

under a boy-king freedom fostered licence. For nothing prolongs reckless

sin like the procrastination of punishment and vengeance. This unbridled

impudence of the soldiers ended by making the king detested, not only by

foreigners, but even by his own people, for the Danes resented such an

arrogant and cruel rule. But Grep was contented with no humble loves;

he broke out so outrageously that he was guilty of intercourse with the

queen, and proved as false to the king as he was violent to all other

men. Then by degrees the scandal grew, and the suspicion of his guilt

crept on with silent step. The common people found it out before the

king. For Grep, by always punishing all who alluded in the least to this

circumstance, had made it dangerous to accuse him. But the rumour of his

crime, which at first was kept alive in whispers, was next passed on in

public reports; for it is hard for men to hide another's guilt if they

are aware of it. Gunwar had many suitors; and accordingly Grep, trying

to take revenge for his rebuff by stealthy wiles, demanded the right

of judging the suitors, declaring that the princess ought to make the

choicest match. But he disguised his anger, lest he should seem to have

sought the office from hatred of the maiden. At his request the king

granted him leave to examine the merits of the young men. So he first

gathered all the wooers of Gunwar together on the pretence of a banquet,

and then lined the customary room of the princess with their heads--a

gruesome spectacle for all the rest. Yet he forfeited none of his favour

with Frode, nor abated his old intimacy with him. For he decided that

any opportunity of an interview with the king must be paid for, and gave

out that no one should have any conversation with him who brought no

presents. Access, he announced, to so great a general must be gained

by no stale or usual method, but by making interest most zealously.

He wished to lighten the scandal of his cruelty by the pretence

of affection to his king. The people, thus tormented, vented their

complaint of their trouble in silent groans. None had the spirit to lift

up his voice in public against this season of misery. No one had become

so bold as to complain openly of the affliction that was falling upon

them. Inward resentment vexed the hearts of men, secretly indeed, but

all the more bitterly.

When Gotar, the King of Norway, heard this, he assembled his soldiers,

and said that the Danes were disgusted with their own king, and longed

for another if they could get the opportunity; that he had himself

resolved to lead an army thither, and that Denmark would be easy to

seize if attacked. Frode's government of his country was as covetous as

it was cruel. Then Erik rose up and gainsaid the project with contrary

reasons. "We remember," he said, "how often coveters of other men's

goods lose their own. He who snatches at both has oft lost both. It must

be a very strong bird that can wrest the prey from the claws of another.

It is idle for thee to be encouraged by the internal jealousies of the

country, for these are oft blown away by the approach of an enemy. For

though the Danes now seem divided in counsel, yet they will soon be of

one mind to meet the foe. The wolves have often made peace between

the quarrelling swine. Every man prefers a leader of his own land to a

foreigner, and every province is warmer in loyalty to a native than to a

stranger king. For Frode will not await thee at home, but will intercept

thee abroad as thou comest. Eagles claw each other with their talons,

and fowls fight fronting. Thou thyself knowest that the keen sight of

the wise man must leave no cause for repentance. Thou hast an ample

guard of nobles. Keep thou quiet as thou art; indeed thou wilt almost be

able to find out by means of others what are thy resources for war. Let

the soldiers first try the fortunes of their king. Provide in peace for

thine own safety, and risk others if thou dost undertake the enterprise:

better that the slave should perish than the master. Let thy servant

do for thee what the tongs do for the smith, who by the aid of his iron

tool guards his hand from scorching, and saves his fingers from burning.

Learn thou also, by using thy men, to spare and take thought for

thyself."

So spake Erik, and Gotar, who had hitherto held him a man of no parts,

now marvelled that he had graced his answer with sentences so choice

and weighty, and gave him the name of Shrewd-spoken, thinking that his

admirable wisdom deserved some title. For the young man's reputation

had been kept in the shade by the exceeding brilliancy of his brother

Roller. Erik begged that some substantial gift should be added to the

name, declaring that the bestowal of the title ought to be graced by

a present besides. The king gave him a ship, and the oarsmen called it

"Skroter." Now Erik and Roller were the sons of Ragnar, the champion,

and children of one father by different mothers; Roller's mother and

Erik's stepmother was named Kraka.

And so, by leave of Gotar, the task of making a raid on the Danes

fell to one Hrafn. He was encountered by Odd, who had at that time the

greatest prestige among the Danes as a rover, for he was such a skilled

magician that he could range over the sea without a ship, and could

often raise tempests by his spells, and wreck the vessels of the enemy.

Accordingly, that he might not have to condescend to pit his sea-forces

against the rovers, he used to ruffle the waters by enchantment, and

cause them to shipwreck his foes. To traders this man was ruthless,

but to tillers of the soil he was merciful, for he thought less of

merchandise than of the plough-handle, but rated the clean business

of the country higher than the toil for filthy lucre. When he began to

fight with the Northmen he so dulled the sight of the enemy by the power

of his spells that they thought the drawn swords of the Danes cast their

beams from afar off, and sparkled as if aflame. Moreover, their vision

was so blunted that they could not so much as look upon the sword

when it was drawn from the sheath: the dazzle was too much for their

eyesight, which could not endure the glittering mirage. So Hrafn and

many of his men were slain, and only six vessels slipped back to Norway

to teach the king that it was not so easy to crush the Danes. The

survivors also spread the news that Frode trusted only in the help of

his champions, and reigned against the will of his people, for his rule

had become a tyranny.

In order to examine this rumour, Roller, who was a great traveller

abroad, and eager to visit unknown parts, made a vow that he would get

into the company of Frode. But Erik declared that, splendid as were his

bodily parts, he had been rash in pronouncing the vow. At last, seeing

him persisting stubbornly in his purpose, Erik bound himself under a

similar vow; and the king promised them that he would give them for

companions whomsoever they approved by their choice. The brethren,

therefore, first resolved to visit their father and beg for the stores

and the necessaries that were wanted for so long a journey. He welcomed

them paternally, and on the morrow took them to the forest to inspect

the herd, for the old man was wealthy in cattle. Also he revealed to

them treasures which had long lain hid in caverns of the earth; and they

were suffered to gather up whatsoever of these they would. The boon was

accepted as heartily as it was offered: so they took the riches out of

the ground, and bore away what pleased them.

Their rowers meanwhile were either refreshing themselves or exercising

their skill with casting weights. Some sped leaping, some running;

others tried their strength by sturdily hurling stones; others tested

their archery by drawing the bow. Thus they essayed to strengthen

themselves with divers exercises. Some again tried to drink themselves

into a drowse. Roller was sent by his father to find out what had passed

at home in the meanwhile. And when he saw smoke coming from his mother's

hut he went up outside, and, stealthily applying his eye, saw through

the little chink and into the house, where he perceived his mother

stirring a cooked mess in an ugly-looking pot. Also he looked up at

three snakes hanging from above by a thin cord, from whose mouths flowed

a slaver which dribbled drops of moisture on the meal. Now two of these

were pitchy of hue, while the third seemed to have whitish scales, and

was hung somewhat higher than the others. This last had a fastening

on its tail, while the others were held by a cord round their bellies.

Roller thought the affair looked like magic, but was silent on what

he had seen, that he might not be thought to charge his mother with

sorcery. For he did not know that the snakes were naturally harmless, or

how much strength was being brewed for that meal. Then Ragnar and Erik

came up, and, when they saw the smoke issuing from the cottage, entered

and went to sit at meat. When they were at table, and Kraka's son and

stepson were about to eat together, she put before them a small dish

containing a piebald mess, part looking pitchy, but spotted with specks

of yellow, while part was whitish: the pottage having taken a different

hue answering to the different appearance of the snakes. And when each

had tasted a single morsel, Erik, judging the feast not by the colours

but by the inward strengthening effected, turned the dish around

very quickly, and transferred to himself the part which was black but

compounded of stronger juices; and, putting over to Roller the whitish

part which had first been set before himself, throve more on his supper.

And, to avoid showing that the exchange was made on purpose, he said,

"Thus does prow become stern when the sea boils up." The man had no

little shrewdness, thus to use the ways of a ship to dissemble his

cunning act.

So Erik, now refreshed by this lucky meal, attained by its inward

working to the highest pitch of human wisdom. For the potency of the

meal bred in him the fulness of all kinds of knowledge to an incredible

degree, so that he had cunning to interpret even the utterances of wild

beasts and cattle. For he was not only well versed in all the affairs

of men, but he could interpret the particular feelings which brutes

experienced from the sounds which expressed them. He was also gifted

with an eloquence so courteous and graceful, that he adorned whatsoever

he desired to expound with a flow of witty adages. But when Kraka came

up, and found that the dish had been turned round, and that Erik had

eaten the stronger share of the meal, she lamented that the good luck

she had bred for her son should have passed to her stepson. Soon she

began to sigh, and entreat Eric that he should never fail to help his

brother, whose mother had heaped on him fortune so rich and strange: for

by tasting a single savoury meal he had clearly attained sovereign wit

and eloquence, besides the promise of success in combat. She added also,

that Roller was almost as capable of good counsel, and that he should

not utterly miss the dainty that had been intended for him. She also

told him that in case of extreme and violent need, he could find speedy

help by calling on her name; declaring that she trusted partially in her

divine attributes, and that, consorting as she did in a manner with the

gods, she wielded an innate and heavenly power. Erik said that he was

naturally drawn to stand by his brother, and that the bird was

infamous which fouled its own nest. But Kraka was more vexed by her own

carelessness than weighed down by her son's ill-fortune: for in old

time it made a craftsman bitterly ashamed to be outwitted by his own

cleverness.

Then Kraka, accompanied by her husband, took away the brothers on their

journey to the sea. They embarked in a single ship, but soon attached

two others. They had already reached the coast of Denmark, when,

reconnoitering, they learned that seven ships had come up at no great

distance. Then Erik bade two men who could speak the Danish tongue well,

to go to them unclothed, and, in order to spy better, to complain to Odd

of their nakedness, as if Erik had caused it, and to report when they

had made careful scrutiny. These men were received as friends by Odd,

and hunted for every plan of the general with their sharp ears. He

had determined to attack the enemy unawares at daybreak, that he might

massacre them the more speedily while they were swathed in their night

garments: for he said that men's bodies were wont to be most dull and

heavy at that hour of dawn. He also told them, thereby hastening what

was to prove his own destruction, that his ships were laden with stones

fit for throwing. The spies slipped off in the first sleep of the night,

reported that Odd had filled all his vessels with pebbles, and also told

everything else they had heard. Erik now quite understood the case, and,

when he considered the smallness of his own fleet, thought that he must

call the waters to destroy the enemy, and win their aid for himself.

So he got into a boat and rowed, pulling silently, close up to the

keels of the enemy; and gradually, by screwing in an auger, he bored the

planks (a device practiced by Hadding and also by Frode), nearest to the

water, and soon made good his return, the oar-beat being scarce audible.

Now he bore himself so warily, that not one of the watchers noted his

approach or departure. As he rowed off, the water got in through

the chinks of Odd's vessels, and sank them, so that they were seen

disappearing in the deep, as the water flooded them more and more

within. The weight of the stones inside helped them mightily to sink.

The billows were washing away the thwarts, and the sea was flush with

the decks, when Odd, seeing the vessels almost on a level with the

waves, ordered the heavy seas that had been shipped to be baled out with

pitchers. And so, while the crews were toiling on to protect the sinking

parts of the vessels from the flood of waters, the enemy hove close up.

Thus, as they fell to their arms, the flood came upon them harder, and

as they prepared to fight, they found they must swim for it. Waves, not

weapons, fought for Erik, and the sea, which he had himself Enabled to

approach and do harm, battled for him. Thus Erik made better use of the

billow than of the steel, and by the effectual aid of the waters seemed

to fight in his own absence, the ocean lending him defence. The victory

was given to his craft; for a flooded ship could not endure a battle.

Thus was Odd slain with all his crew; the look-outs were captured, and

it was found that no man escaped to tell the tale of the disaster.

Erik, when the massacre was accomplished, made a rapid retreat, and put

in at the isle Lesso. Finding nothing there to appease his hunger, he

sent the spoil homeward on two ships, which were to bring back supplies

for another year. He tried to go by himself to the king in a single

ship. So he put in to Zealand, and the sailors ran about over the shore,

and began to cut down the cattle: for they must either ease their hunger

or perish of famine. So they killed the herd, skinned the carcases, and

cast them on board. When the owners of the cattle found this out, they

hastily pursued the free-booters with a fleet. And when Erik found that

he was being attacked by the owners of the cattle, he took care that the

carcases of the slaughtered cows should be tied with marked ropes and

hidden under water. Then, when the Zealanders came up, he gave them

leave to look about and see if any of the carcases they were seeking

were in his hands; saying that a ship's corners were too narrow to hide

things. Unable to find a carcase anywhere, they turned their suspicions

on others, and thought the real criminals were guiltless of the plunder.

Since no traces of free-booting were to be seen, they fancied that

others had injured them, and pardoned the culprits. As they sailed off,

Erik lifted the carcase out of the water and took it in.

Meantime Frode learnt that Odd and his men had gone down. For a

widespread rumour of the massacre had got wind, though the author of the

deed was unknown. There were men, however, who told how they had seen

three sails putting in to shore, and departing again northwards. Then

Erik went to the harbour, not far from which Frode was tarrying, and,

the moment that he stepped out of the ship, tripped inadvertently, and

came tumbling to the ground. He found in the slip a presage of a lucky

issue, and forecast better results from this mean beginning. When Grep

heard of his coming, he hastened down to the sea, intending to

assail with chosen and pointed phrases the man whom he had heard was

better-spoken than all other folk. Grep's eloquence was not so much

excellent as impudent, for he surpassed all in stubbornness of speech.

So he began the dispute with reviling, and assailed Erik as follows:

Grep: "Fool, who art thou? What idle quest is thine? Tell me, whence or

whither dost thou journey? What is thy road? What thy desire? Who thy

father? What thy lineage? Those have strength beyond others who have

never left their own homes, and the Luck of kings is their houseluck.

For the things of a vile man are acceptable unto few, and seldom are the

deeds of the hated pleasing."

Erik: "Ragnar is my father; eloquence clothes my tongue; I have ever

loved virtue only. Wisdom hath been my one desire; I have travelled many

ways over the world, and seen the different manners of men. The mind of

the fool can keep no bounds in aught: it is base and cannot control its

feelings. The use of sails is better than being drawn by the oar; the

gale troubles the waters, a drearier gust the land. For rowing goes

through the seas and lying the lands; and it is certain that the lands

are ruled with the lips, but the seas with the hand."

Grep: "Thou art thought to be as full of quibbling as a cock of dirt.

Thou stinkest heavy with filth, and reekest of nought but sin. There is

no need to lengthen the plea against a buffoon, whose strength is in an

empty and voluble tongue."

Erik: "By Hercules, if I mistake not, the coward word is wont to come

back to the utterer. The gods with righteous endeavour bring home to

the speaker words cast forth without knowledge. As soon as we espy the

sinister ears of the wolf, we believe that the wolf himself is near. Men

think no credit due to him that hath no credit, whom report accuses of

treachery."

Grep: "Shameless boy, owl astray from the path, night-owl in the

darkness, thou shalt pay for thy reckless words. Thou shalt be sorry for

the words thou now belchest forth madly, and shalt pay with thy death

for thy unhallowed speech. Lifeless thou shalt pasture crows on thy

bloodless corpse, to be a morsel for beasts, a prey to the ravenous

bird."

Erik: "The boding of the coward, and the will that is trained to evil,

have never kept themselves within due measure. He who betrays his lord,

he who conceives foul devices, will be as great a snare to himself as

to his friends. Whoso fosters a wolf in his house is thought to feed a

thief and a pest for his own hearth."

Grep: "I did not, as thou thinkest, beguile the queen, but I was the

guardian of her tender estate. She increased my fortunes, and her favour

first brought me gifts and strength, and wealth and counsel."

Erik: "Lo, thy guilty disquiet lies heavy on thee; that man's freedom is

safest whose mind remains untainted. Whoso asks a slave to be a friend,

is deceived; often the henchman hurts his master."

At this Grep, shorn of his glibness of rejoinder, set spurs to his

horse and rode away. Now when he reached home, he filled the palace with

uproarious and vehement clamour; and shouting that he had been worsted

in words, roused all his soldiers to fight, as though he would avenge by

main force his luckless warfare of tongues. For he swore that he would

lay the host of the foreigners under the claws of eagles. But the king

warned him that he should give his frenzy pause for counsel, that blind

plans were commonly hurtful; that nothing could be done both cautiously

and quickly at once; that headstrong efforts were the worst obstacle;

and lastly, that it was unseemly to attack a handful with a host. Also,

said he, the sagacious man was he who could bridle a raging spirit, and

stop his frantic empetuosity in time. Thus the king forced the headlong

rage of the young man to yield to reflection. But he could not wholly

recall to self-control the frenzy of his heated mind, or prevent the

champion of wrangles, abashed by his hapless debate, and finding armed

vengeance refused him, from asking leave at least to try his sorceries

by way of revenge. He gained his request, and prepared to go back to

the shore with a chosen troop of wizards. So he first put on a pole

the severed head of a horse that had been sacrificed to the gods, and

setting sticks beneath displayed the jaws grinning agape; hoping that

he would foil the first efforts of Erik by the horror of this wild

spectacle. For he supposed that the silly souls of the barbarians would

give away at the bogey of a protruding neck.

Erik was already on his road to meet them, and saw the head from afar

off, and, understanding the whole foul contrivance, he bade his men keep

silent and behave warily; no man was to be rash or hasty of speech, lest

by some careless outburst they might give some opening to the sorceries;

adding that if talking happened to be needed, he would speak for all.

And they were now parted by a river; when the wizards, in order to

dislodge Erik from the approach to the bridge, set up close to the

river, on their own side, the pole on which they had fixed the horse's

head. Nevertheless Erik made dauntlessly for the bridge, and said: "On

the bearer fall the ill-luck of what he bears! May a better issue attend

our steps! Evil befall the evil-workers! Let the weight of the ominous

burden crush the carrier! Let the better auguries bring us safety!" And

it happened according to his prayer. For straightway the head was shaken

off, the stick fell and crushed the bearer. And so all that array

of sorceries was baffled at the bidding of a single curse, and

extinguished.

Then, as Erik advanced a little, it came into his mind that strangers

ought to fix on gifts for the king. So he carefully wrapped up in his

robe a piece of ice which he happened to find, and managed to take it to

the king by way of a present. But when they reached the palace he sought

entrance first, and bade his brother follow close behind. Already the

slaves of the king, in order to receive him with mockery as he entered,

had laid a slippery hide on the threshold; and when Erik stepped upon

it, they suddenly jerked it away by dragging a rope, and would have

tripped him as he stood upon it, had not Roller, following behind,

caught his brother on his breast as he tottered. So Erik, having half

fallen, said that "bare was the back of the brotherless." And when

Gunwar said that such a trick ought not to be permitted by a king,

the king condemned the folly of the messenger who took no heed against

treachery. And thus he excused his flout by the heedlessness of the man

he flouted.

Within the palace was blazing a fire, which the aspect of the season

required: for it was now gone midwinter. By it, in different groups, sat

the king on one side and the champions on the other. These latter, when

Erik joined them, uttered gruesome sounds like things howling. The king

stopped the clamour, telling them that the noises of wild beasts ought

not to be in the breasts of men. Erik added, that it was the way of

dogs, for all the others to set up barking when one started it; for all

folk by their bearing betrayed their birth and revealed their race. But

when Koll, who was the keeper of the gifts offered to the king, asked

him whether he had brought any presents with him, he produced the ice

which he had hidden in his breast. And when he had handed it to Koll

across the hearth, he purposely let it go into the fire, as though it

had slipped from the hand of the receiver. All present saw the shining

fragment, and it seemed as though molten metal had fallen into the fire.

Erik, maintaining that it had been jerked away by the carelessness of

him who took it, asked what punishment was due to the loser of the gift.

The king consulted the opinion of the queen, who advised him not to

relax the statute of the law which he had passed, whereby he gave

warning that all who lost presents that were transmitted to him should

be punished with death. Everyone else also said that the penalty by law

appointed ought not to be remitted. And so the king, being counselled to

allow the punishment as inevitable, gave leave for Koll to be hanged.

Then Frode began to accost Erik thus: "O thou, wantoning in insolent

phrase, in boastful and bedizened speech, whence dost thou say that thou

hast come hither, and why?"

Erik answered: "I came from Rennes Isle, and I took my seat by a stone."

Frode rejoined: "I ask, whither thou wentest next?"

Erik answered. "I went off from the stone riding on a beam, and often

again took station by a stone."

Frode replied: "I ask thee whither thou next didst bend thy course, or

where the evening found thee?"

Then said Erik: "Leaving a crag, I came to a rock, and likewise lay by a

stone."

Frode said: "The boulders lay thick in those parts."

Erik answered: "Yet thicker lies the sand, plain to see."

Frode said: "Tell what thy business was, and whither thou struckest off

thence."

Then said Erik: "Leaving the rock, as my ship ran on, I found a

dolphin."

Frode said: "Now thou hast said something fresh, though both these

things are common in the sea: but I would know what path took thee after

that?"

Erik answered: "After a dolphin I went to a dolphin."

Frode said: "The herd of dolphins is somewhat common."

Then said Erik: "It does swim somewhat commonly on the waters."

Frode said: "I would fain blow whither thou wert borne on thy toilsome

journey after leaving the dolphins?"

Erik answered: "I soon came upon the trunk of a tree."

Frode rejoined: "Whither didst thou next pass on thy journey?"

Then said Erik: "From a trunk I passed on to a log."

Frode said: "That spot must be thick with trees, since thou art always

calling the abodes of thy hosts by the name of trunks."

Erik replied: "There is a thicker place in the woods."

Frode went on: "Relate whither thou next didst bear thy steps."

Erik answered: "Oft again I made my way to the lopped timbers of the

woods; but, as I rested there, wolves that were sated on human carcases

licked the points of the spears. There a lance-head was shaken from the

shaft of the king, and it was the grandson of Fridleif."

Frode said: "I am bewildered, and know not what to think about the

dispute: for thou hast beguiled my mind with very dark riddling."

Erik answered: "Thou owest me the prize for this contest that is

finished: for under a veil I have declared to thee certain things thou

hast ill understood. For under the name I gave before of `spear-point' I

signified Odd, whom my hand had slain."

And when the queen also had awarded him the palm of eloquence and the

prize for flow of speech, the king straightway took a bracelet from his

arm, and gave it to him as the appointed reward, adding: "I would fain

learn from thyself thy debate with Grep, wherein he was not ashamed

openly to avow himself vanquished."

Then said Erik: "He was smitten with shame for the adultery wherewith he

was taxed; for since he could bring no defence, he confessed that he had

committed it with thy wife."

The king turned to Hanund and asked her in what spirit she received

the charge; and she not only confessed her guilt by a cry, but also put

forth in her face a blushing signal of her sin, and gave manifest token

of her fault. The king, observing not only her words, but also the signs

of her countenance, but doubting with what sentence he should punish the

criminal, let the queen settle by her own choice the punishment which

her crime deserved. When she learnt that the sentence committed to

her concerned her own guilt, she wavered awhile as she pondered how

to appraise her transgression; but Grep sprang up and ran forward to

transfix Erik with a spear, wishing to buy off his own death by slaying

the accuser. But Roller fell on him with drawn sword, and dealt him

first the doom he had himself purposed.

Erik said: "The service of kin is best for the helpless."

And Roller said: "In sore needs good men should be dutifully summoned."

Then Frode said: "I think it will happen to you according to the common

saying, `that the striker sometimes has short joy of his stroke', and

`that the hand is seldom long glad of the smiting'."

Erik answered: "The man must not be impeached whose deed justice

excuses. For my work is as far as from that of Grep, as an act of

self-defence is from an attack upon another."

Then the brethren of Grep began to spring up and clamour and swear that

they would either bring avengers upon the whole fleet of Erik, or would

fight him and ten champions with him.

Erik said to them: "Sick men have to devise by craft some provision for

their journey. He whose sword-point is dull should only probe things

that are soft and tender. He who has a blunt knife must search out the

ways to cut joint by joint. Since, therefore, it is best for a man in

distress to delay the evil, and nothing is more fortunate in trouble

than to stave off hard necessity, I ask three days' space to get ready,

provided that I may obtain from the king the skill of a freshly slain

ox."

Frode answered: "He who fell on a hide deserves a hide"; thus openly

taunting the asker with his previous fall. But Erik, when the hide was

given him, made some sandals, which he smeared with a mixture of tar and

sand, in order to plant his steps the more firmly, and fitted them on to

the feet of himself and his people. At last, having meditated what spot

he should choose for the fight--for he said that he was unskilled in

combat by land and in all warfare--he demanded it should be on the

frozen sea. To this both sides agreed. The king granted a truce for

preparations, and bade the sons of Westmar withdraw, saying that it was

amiss that a guest, even if he had deserved ill should be driven

from his lodging. Then he went back to examine into the manner of the

punishment, which he had left to the queen's own choice to exact. For

she forebore to give judgment, and begged pardon for her slip. Erik

added, that woman's errors must often be forgiven, and that punishment

ought not to be inflicted, unless amendment were unable to get rid of

her fault. So the king pardoned Hanund. As twilight drew near, Erik

said: "With Gotar, not only are rooms provided when the soldiers are

coming to feast at the banquet, but each is appointed a separate place

and seat where he is to lie." Then the king gave up for their occupation

the places where his own champions had sat; and next the servants

brought the banquet. But Erik, knowing well the courtesy of the king,

which made him forbid them to use up any of the meal that was left,

cast away the piece of which he had tasted very little, calling whole

portions broken bits of food. And so, as the dishes dwindled, the

servants brought up fresh ones to the lacking and shamefaced guests,

thus spending on a little supper what might have served for a great

banquet.

So the king said: "Are the soldiers of Gotar wont to squander the meat

after once touching it, as if it were so many pared-off crusts? And to

spurn the first dishes as if they were the last morsels?"

Erik said: "Uncouthness claims no place in the manners of Gotar, neither

does any disorderly habit feign there."

But Frode said: "Then thy manners are not those of thy lord, and thou

hast proved that thou hast not taken all wisdom to heart. For he who

goes against the example of his elders shows himself a deserter and a

renegade."

Then said Erik: "The wise man must be taught by the wiser. For knowledge

grows by learning, and instruction is advanced by doctrine."

Frode rejoined: "This affectation of thine of superfluous words, what

exemplary lesson will it teach me?"

Erik said: "A loyal few are a safer defence for a king than many

traitors."

Frode said to him: "Wilt thou then show us closer allegiance than the

rest?"

Erik answered: "No man ties the unborn (horse) to the crib, or the

unbegotten to the stall. For thou hast not yet experienced all things.

Besides, with Gotar there is always a mixture of drinking with

feasting; liquor, over and above, and as well as meat, is the joy of the

reveller."

Frode said: "Never have I found a more shameless beggar of meat and

drink."

Erik replied: "Few reckon the need of the silent, or measure the wants

of him who holds his peace."

Then the king bade his sister bring forth the drink in a great goblet.

Erik caught hold of her right hand and of the goblet she offered at the

same time, and said: "Noblest of kings, hath thy benignity granted me

this present? Dost thou assure me that what I hold shall be mine as an

irrevocable gift?"

The king, thinking that he was only asking for the cup, declared it was

a gift. But Erik drew the maiden to him, as if she was given with the

cup. When the king saw it, he said: "A fool is shown by his deed; with

us freedom of maidens is ever held inviolate."

Then Erik, feigning that he would cut off the girl's hand with his

sword, as though it had been granted under the name of the cup, said:

"If I have taken more than thou gavest, or if I am rash to keep the

whole, let me at least get some." The king saw his mistake in his

promise, and gave him the maiden, being loth to undo his heedlessness

by fickleness, and that the weight of his pledge might seem the greater;

though it is held an act more of ripe judgment than of unsteadfastness

to take back a foolish promise.

Then, taking from Erik security that he would return, he sent him to the

ships; for the time appointed for the battle was at hand. Erik and his

men went on to the sea, then covered near with ice; and, thanks to the

stability of their sandals, felled the enemy, whose footing was slippery

and unsteady. For Frode had decreed that no man should help either side

if it wavered or were distressed. Then he went back in triumph to the

king. So Gotwar, sorrowing at the destruction of her children who had

miserably perished, and eager to avenge them, announced that it would

please her to have a flyting with Erik, on condition that she should

gage a heavy necklace and he his life; so that if he conquered he should

win gold, but if he gave in, death. Erik agreed to the contest, and the

gage was deposited with Gunwar. So Gotwar began thus:

"Quando tuam limas admissa cote bipennem,

Nonne terit tremulas mentula quassa nates?"

Erik rejoined:

"Ut cuivis natura pilos in corpore sevit,

Omnis nempe suo barba ferenda loco est.

Re Veneris homines artus agitare necesse est;

Motus quippe suos nam labor omnis habet.

Cum natis excipitur nate, vel cum subdita penem

Vulva capit, quid ad haec addere mas renuit?"

Powerless to answer this, Gotwar had to give the gold to the man

whom she had meant to kill, and thus wasted a lordly gift instead of

punishing the slayer of her son. For her ill fate was crowned, instead

of her ill-will being avenged. First bereaved, and then silenced

by furious words, she lost at once her wealth and all reward of her

eloquence. She made the man blest who had taken away her children, and

enriched her bereaver with a present: and took away nothing to make up

the slaughter of her sons save the reproach of ignorance and the loss of

goods. Westmar, when he saw this, determined to attack the man by force,

since he was the stronger of tongue, and laid down the condition that

the reward of the conqueror should be the death of the conquered, so

that the life of both parties was plainly at stake. Erik, unwilling to

be thought quicker of tongue than of hand, did not refuse the terms.

Now the manner of combat was as follows. A ring, plaited of withy or

rope, used to be offered to the combatants for them to drag away by

wrenching it with a great effort of foot and hand; and the prize went to

the stronger, for if either of the combatants could wrench it from the

other, he was awarded the victory. Erik struggled in this manner, and,

grasping the rope sharply, wrested it out of the hands of his opponent.

When Erode saw this, he said: "I think it is hard to tug at a rope with

a strong man."

And Erik said: "Hard, at any rate, when a tumour is in the body or a

hunch sits on the back."

And straightway, thrusting his foot forth, he broke the infirm neck and

back of the old man, and crushed him. And so Westmar failed to compass

his revenge: zealous to retaliate, he fell into the portion of those who

need revenging; being smitten down even as those whose slaughter he had

desired to punish.

Now Frode intended to pierce Erik by throwing a dagger at him. But

Gunwar knew her brother's purpose, and said, in order to warn

her betrothed of his peril, that no man could be wise who took no

forethought for himself. This speech warned Erik to ward off the

treachery, and he shrewdly understood the counsel of caution. For at

once he sprang up and said that the glory of the wise man would be

victorious, but that guile was its own punishment; thus censuring his

treacherous intent in very gentle terms. But the king suddenly flung his

knife at him, yet was too late to hit him; for he sprang aside, and the

steel missed its mark and ran into the wall opposite. Then said Erik:

"Gifts should be handed to friends, and not thrown; thou hadst made

the present acceptable if thou hadst given the sheath to keep the blade

company."

On this request the king at once took the sheath from his girdle and

gave it to him, being forced to abate his hatred by the self-control of

his foe. Thus he was mollified by the prudent feigning of the other, and

with goodwill gave him for his own the weapon which he had cast with

ill will. And thus Erik, by taking the wrong done him in a dissembling

manner, turned it into a favour, accepting as a splendid gift the steel

which had been meant to slay him. For he put a generous complexion on

what Frode had done with intent to harm. Then they gave themselves up

to rest. In the night Gunwar awoke Erik silently, and pointed out to him

that they ought to fly, saying that it was very expedient to return with

safe chariot ere harm was done. He went with her to the shore, where he

happened to find the king's fleet beached: so, cutting away part of

the sides, he made it unseaworthy, and by again replacing some laths he

patched it so that the damage might be unnoticed by those who looked at

it. Then he caused the vessel whither he and his company had retired to

put off a little from the shore.

The king prepared to give them chase with his mutilated ships, but soon

the waves broke through; and though he was very heavily laden with his

armour, he began to swim off among the rest, having become more anxious

to save his own life than to attack that of others. The bows plunged

over into the sea, the tide flooded in and swept the rowers from their

seats. When Erik and Roller saw this they instantly flung themselves

into the deep water, spurning danger, and by swimming picked up the

king, who was tossing about. Thrice the waves had poured over him and

borne him down when Erik caught him by the hair, and lifted him out of

the sea. The remaining crowd of the wrecked either sank in the waters,

or got with trouble to the land. The king was stripped of his dripping

attire and swathed round with dry garments, and the water poured in

floods from his chest as he kept belching it; his voice also seemed

to fail under the exhaustion of continual pantings. At last heat was

restored to his limbs, which were numbed with cold, and his breathing

became quicker. He had not fully got back his strength, and could sit

but not rise. Gradually his native force returned. But when he was asked

at last whether he sued for life and grace, he put his hand to his eyes,

and strove to lift up their downcast gaze. But as, little by little,

power came back to his body, and as his voice became more assured, he

said:

"By this light, which I am loth to look on, by this heaven which I

behold and drink in with little joy, I beseech and conjure you not to

persuade me to use either any more. I wished to die; ye have saved me in

vain. I was not allowed to perish in the waters; at least I will die by

the sword. I was unconquered before; thine, Erik, was the first wit to

which I yielded: I was all the more unhappy, because I had never been

beaten by men of note, and now I let a low-born man defeat me. This

is great cause for a king to be ashamed. This is a good and sufficient

reason for a general to die; it is right that he should care for nothing

so much as glory. If he want that, then take it that he lacks all else.

For nothing about a king is more on men's lips than his repute. I was

credited with the height of understanding and eloquence. But I have been

stripped of both the things wherein I was thought to excel, and am all

the more miserable because I, the conqueror of kings, am seen conquered

by a peasant. Why grant life to him whom thou hast robbed of honour? I

have lost sister, realm, treasure, household gear, and, what is greater

than them all, renown: I am luckless in all chances, and in all thy

good fortune is confessed. Why am I to be kept to live on for all this

ignominy? What freedom can be so happy for me that it can wipe out all

the shame of captivity? What will all the following time bring for me?

It can beget nothing but long remorse in my mind, and will savour only

of past woes. What will prolonging of life avail, if it only brings back

the memory of sorrow? To the stricken nought is pleasanter than death,

and that decease is happy which comes at a man's wish, for it cuts not

short any sweetness of his days, but annihilates his disgust at all

things. Life in prosperity, but death in adversity, is best to seek.

No hope of better things tempts me to long for life. What hap can quite

repair my shattered fortunes? And by now, had ye not rescued me in my

peril, I should have forgotten even these. What though thou shouldst

give me back my realm, restore my sister, and renew my treasure? Thou

canst never repair my renown. Nothing that is patched up can have the

lustre of the unimpaired, and rumour will recount for ages that

Frode was taken captive. Moreover, if ye reckon the calamities I have

inflicted on you, I have deserved to die at your hands; if ye recall the

harms I have done, ye will repent your kindness. Ye will be ashamed of

having aided a foe, if ye consider how savagely he treated you. Why do

ye spare the guilty? Why do ye stay your hand from the throat of your

persecutor? It is fitting that the lot which I had prepared for you

should come home to myself. I own that if I had happened to have you in

my power as ye now have me, I should have paid no heed to compassion.

But if I am innocent before you in act, I am guilty at least in will. I

pray you, let my wrongful intention, which sometimes is counted to stand

for the deed, recoil upon me. If ye refuse me death by the sword I will

take care to kill myself with my own hand."

Erik rejoined thus: "I pray that the gods may turn thee from the folly

of thy purpose; turn thee, I say, that thou mayst not try to end a most

glorious life abominably. Why, surely the gods themselves have forbidden

that a man who is kind to others should commit unnatural self-murder.

Fortune has tried thee to find out with what spirit thou wouldst meet

adversity. Destiny has proved thee, not brought thee low. No sorrow has

been inflicted on thee which a happier lot cannot efface. Thy prosperity

has not been changed; only a warning has been given thee. No man behaves

with self-control in prosperity who has not learnt to endure adversity.

Besides, the whole use of blessings is reaped after misfortunes have

been graciously acknowledged. Sweeter is the joy which follows on the

bitterness of fate. Wilt thou shun thy life because thou hast once had a

drenching, and the waters closed over thee? But if the waters can crush

thy spirit, when wilt thou with calm courage bear the sword? Who would

not reckon swimming away in his armour more to his glory than to his

shame? How many men would think themselves happy were they unhappy

with thy fortune? The sovereignty is still thine; thy courage is in its

prime; thy years are ripening; thou canst hope to compass more than thou

hast yet achieved. I would not find thee fickle enough to wish, not only

to shun hardships, but also to fling away thy life, because thou couldst

not bear them. None is so unmanly as he who from fear of adversity loses

heart to live. No wise man makes up for his calamities by dying. Wrath

against another is foolish, but against a man's self it is foolhardy;

and it is a coward frenzy which dooms its owner. But if thou go

without need to thy death for some wrong suffered, or for some petty

perturbation of spirit, whom dost thou leave behind to avenge thee?

Who is so mad that he would wish to punish the fickleness of fortune by

destroying himself? What man has lived so prosperously but that ill

fate has sometimes stricken him? Hast thou enjoyed felicity unbroken

and passed thy days without a shock, and now, upon a slight cloud of

sadness, dost thou prepare to quit thy life, only to save thy anguish?

If thou bear trifles so ill, how shalt thou endure the heavier frowns

of fortune? Callow is the man who has never tasted of the cup of sorrow;

and no man who has not suffered hardships is temperate in enjoying ease.

Wilt thou, who shouldst have been a pillar of courage, show a sign of a

palsied spirit? Born of a brave sire, wilt thou display utter impotence?

Wilt thou fall so far from thy ancestors as to turn softer than women?

Hast thou not yet begun thy prime, and art thou already taken with

weariness of life? Whoever set such an example before? Shall the

grandson of a famous man, and the child of the unvanquished, be too weak

to endure a slight gust of adversity? Thy nature portrays the courage of

thy sires; none has conquered thee, only thine own heedlessness has hurt

thee. We snatched thee from peril, we did not subdue thee; wilt thou

give us hatred for love, and set our friendship down as wrongdoing? Our

service should have appeased thee, and not troubled thee. May the gods

never desire thee to go so far in frenzy, as to persist in branding

thy preserver as a traitor! Shall we be guilty before thee in a matter

wherein we do thee good? Shall we draw anger on us for our service? Wilt

thou account him thy foe whom thou hast to thank for thy life? For thou

wert not free when we took thee, but in distress, and we came in time to

help thee. And, behold, I restore thy treasure, thy wealth, thy goods.

If thou thinkest thy sister was betrothed to me over-hastily, let her

marry the man whom thou commandest; for her chastity remains inviolate.

Moreover, if thou wilt accept me, I wish to fight for thee. Beware lest

thou wrongfully steel thy mind in anger. No loss of power has shattered

thee, none of thy freedom has been forfeited. Thou shalt see that I

am obeying, not commanding thee. I agree to any sentence thou mayst

pronounce against my life. Be assured that thou art as strong here as-in

thy palace; thou hast the same power to rule here as in thy court. Enact

concerning us here whatsoever would have been thy will in the palace: we

are ready to obey." Thus much said Erik.

Now this speech softened the king towards himself as much as towards his

foe. Then, everything being arranged and made friendly, they returned to

the shore. The king ordered that Erik and his sailors should be taken in

carriages. But when they reached the palace he had an assembly summoned,

to which he called Erik, and under the pledge of betrothal gave him

his sister and command over a hundred men. Then he added that the queen

would be a weariness to him, and that the daughter of Gotar had taken

his liking. He must, therefore, have a fresh embassy, and the business

could best be done by Erik, for whose efforts nothing seemed too hard.

He also said that he would stone Gotwar to death for her complicity in

concealing the crime; but Hanund he would restore to her father, that he

might not have a traitress against his life dwelling amongst the Danes.

Erik approved his plans, and promised his help to carry out his bidding;

except that he declared that it would be better to marry the queen, when

she had been put away, to Roller, of whom his sovereignty need have no

fears. This opinion Frode received reverentially, as though it were some

lesson vouchsafed from above. The queen also, that she might not seem

to be driven by compulsion, complied, as women will, and declared that

there was no natural necessity to grieve, and that all distress of

spirit was a creature of fancy: and, moreover, that one ought not to

bewail the punishment that befell one's deserts. And so the brethren

celebrated their marriages together, one wedding the sister of the king,

and the other his divorced queen.

Then they sailed back to Norway, taking their wives with them. For

the women could not be torn from the side of their husbands, either by

distance of journey or by dread of peril, but declared that they would

stick to their lords like a feather to something shaggy. They found that

Ragnar was dead, and that Kraka had already married one Brak. Then they

remembered the father's treasure, dug up the money, and bore it off.

But Erik's fame had gone before him, and Gotar had learnt all his good

fortune. Now when Gotar learnt that he had come himself, he feared that

his immense self-confidence would lead him to plan the worst against the

Norwegians, and was anxious to take his wife from him and marry him to

his own daughter in her place: for his queen had just died, and he was

anxious to marry the sister of Frode more than anyone. Erik, when he

learnt of his purpose, called his men together, and told them that his

fortune had not yet got off from the reefs. Also he said that he saw,

that as a bundle that was not tied by a band fell to pieces, so likewise

the heaviest punishment that was not constrained on a man by his own