attack. He and King Gamle exchanged blows with each other, and King Gamle got a grievous wound;but Egil fell, and many people with him. Then came Hakon the king with the troops which had followed him, and a new battle began. King Hakon pushed on, cutting down men on both sides of him, and killing the one upon the top of .the other. So sings Guttorm Sindre:—
"Scared, by the sharp swords' singing sound,
Brandished in air, the foe gave ground.
The boldest warrior cannot stand
Before King Hakon's conquering hand;
And the king's banner ever flies
Where the spear-forests thickest rise.
Altho' the king had gained of old
Enough of Freya's tears of gold,[1]
He spared himself no more than tho'
He'd had no well-filled purse to show."[2]
When Eric's sons saw their men falling all round, they turned and fled to their ships; but those who had sought the ships before had pushed off some of them from the land, while some of them were still hauled up and on the strand. Now the sons of Eric and their men plunged into the sea, and betook themselves to swimming. Gamle Ericsson was drowned; but the other sons of Eric reached their ships, and setsail with what men remained. They steered southwards to Denmark, where they stopped a while, very ill satisfied with their expedition.
Chapter XXVII.
Egil Ullscerk's burial-ground.
King Hakon took all the ships of the sons of Eric that had been left upon the strand, and had them drawn quite up, and brought on the land. Then he
- ↑ Freya's husband was Odd; and her tears, when she wept at the long absence of her husband, were tears of gold. Odd's wife's tears is the scald's expression here for gold—understood, no doubt, as readily as any allusion to Plutus would convey the equivalent meaning in modern poetry.
- ↑ Wealth, the acquisition of wealth, appears then to have been the stimulus to enteiprise, as much as in our times; and wealth gained, and liberally used, the great subject of the scalds' praises.
