Earl Hakon drew up his people in ranks upon all the gate-towers of the wall, hut the greater part of them he kept marching along the wall to make a defence wheresoever an attack was threatened. Many of the emperor's people fell without making any impression on the fortification, so the emperor turned hack without farther attempt at an assault on it. So it is said in the "Vellekla:"—
"They who the eagle's feast provide
In ranked line fought side by side,
'Gainst lines of war-men under shields
Close packed together on the fields.
Earl Hakon drives by daring deeds
These Saxons to their ocean-steeds;
And the young hero saves from fall
The Danaverk—the people's wall."
After this battle Earl Hakon went hack to his ships, and intended to sail home to Norway; but he did not get a favourable wind, and lay for some time outside at Lymfiord.
Chapter XXVII.
King Harald and Earl Hakon are baptized.
The Emperor Otto turned hack with his troops to Sleswick, collected his ships of war, and crossed the fiord of Sle[1] into Jutland. As soon as the Danish king heard of this he marched his army against him, and there was a battle, in which the emperor at last got the victory. The Danish king fled to Lymfiord, and took refuge in the island Morsey.[2] By the help of mediators who went between the king and the emperor, a truce and a meeting between them were agreed on. The Emperor Otto and the Danish king met upon Mors Isle. There Bishop Poppo instructed King Harald in the holy faith; and thereafter King Harald allowed himself to be baptized, and also the whole Danish army. King Hakon, while he was in Mors Isle, had sent a message to Hakon that he should
