Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/258

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244

CHRONICLE OF THE

ditions. On one of these he came to Saxonland with his troops. There a king was reigning called Geirthiof, and his wife was called Alof the Great; but nothing is told of their children. The king was not at home, and Adils and his men ran up to the king's house and plundered it, while others drove a herd of cattle down to the strand.^[1] The herd was attended by slave-people, carls and girls, and they took all of them together. Among them was a remarkably beautiful girl called Yrsa. Adils returned home with this plunder. Yrsa was not one of the slave girls, and it was soon observed that she was intelligent, spoke well, and in all respects was well behaved. All people thought well of her, and particularly the king; and at last it came to so far that the king celebrated his wedding with her, and Yrsa became queen of Sweden, and was considered an excellent woman.

Chapter XXXIII.
Of King Adils' death.

King Halfdan's son klelge ruled at that time over Leidre. He came to Sweden with so great an army, that King Adils saw no other way than to fly at once. King Helge landed with his army, plundered, and made a great booty. He took Queen Yrsa prisoner, carried her with him to Leidre, took her to wife, and had a son by her called Kolf Krake. When Rolf was three years old, Queen Alof came to Denmark, and told Queen Yrsa that her husband, King Helge, was her own father, and that she, Alof, was her mother. Thereupon Yrsa went back to Sweden to King Adils, and was queen there as long as she

↑ The ordinary way, with the vikings, of victualling their ships, was driving cattle down to the strand and killing them, without regard to the property of friends or enemies; and this was so established a practice that it was expressed in a single word, "strandhug." King Harald Haarfager had prohibited the strandhug being committed in his own dominions by his own subjects on their viking cruises; and Rolf Ganger, the son of the Earl of More, having, notwithstanding, landed and made a strandhug in the South of Norway, where the king happened to be, was outlawed; and he in consequence set out on an expedition, in which he conquered and settled in Normandy.

[1] The ordinary way, with the vikings, of victualling their ships, was driving cattle down to the strand and killing them, without regard to the property of friends or enemies; and this was so established a practice that it was expressed in a single word, "strandhug." King Harald Haarfager had prohibited the strandhug being committed in his own dominions by his own subjects on their viking cruises; and Rolf Ganger, the son of the Earl of More, having, notwithstanding, landed and made a strandhug in the South of Norway, where the king happened to be, was outlawed; and he in consequence set out on an expedition, in which he conquered and settled in Normandy.

[1]