a cattle foray.[1] As King Harald happened, just at SAGA that time, to be in Viken, he heard of it, and was in a great rage; for he had forbid, by the greatest punishment, the plundering within the bounds of the country. The king assembled a Thing, and had Rolf declared an outlaw over all Norway. When Rolf's mother, Hilda, heard of it she hastened to the king, and entreated peace for Rolf; but the king was so enraged that her entreaty was of no avail. Then Hilda spake these lines:—
"Think'st thou. King Harald, in thy anger,
To drive away my brave Rolf Ganger,
Like a mad wolf, from out the land?
Why, Harald, raise thy mighty hand?
Why banish Nasfia's gallant name-son,
The brother of brave udal-men?
'Why is thy cruelty so fell?
Bethink thee, monarch, it is ill
With such a wolf at wolf to play,
Who, driven to the wild woods away,
May make the king's best deer his prey."
Gange-Rolf went afterwards over sea to the West to the Hebudes, or Sydreyar [2]; and at last farther west to Valland[3], where he plundered and subdued for himself a great earldom, which he peopled with Northmen, from which that land is called Normandy. Gange-Rolf's son was William, father to Richard, and grandfather to another Richard, who was the father of Richard Longspear, and grandfather of William the Bastard, from whom all the following English kings are descended. From Gange-Rolf also are
- ↑ A strandhögg, or foray for cattle to be slaughtered on the strand, for his ships.
- ↑ Sydreyar,—of which we still retain the name Sodor, applied to the bishopric of Sodor and Man,—was the southern division of the Hebrides, or Hebudes.
- ↑ Valland was the name applied to all the west coast of France, but more particularly to Bretagne, as being inhabited by the Valer or inhabitants of Wales and Corn wales (Cornwall), expelled by the Saxons from Great Britain in the last half of the 5th century. The adjective Valskr (Welsh) was used to denote what belonged to this Valland.
