"On the silent battle-field,
In viking garb, with axe and shield.
The warrior, striding o'er the slain,
Asks of the gods 'What days will gain?'
Two ravens, flying from the east,
Come croaking to the bloody feast:
The warrior knows what they foreshow—
The days when Gotland blood will flow.
A viking-feast Earl Hakon kept,
The land with viking fury swept,
Harrying the land far from the shore
Where foray ne'er was known before.
Leaving the barren cold coast side,
He ranged through Gotland far and wide,—
Led many a gold-decked viking shield
O'er many a peaceful inland field.
Bodies on bodies Odin found
Heaped high upon each battle ground:
The moor, as if by witchcraft's power,
Grows green, enriched by bloody shower.
No wonder that the gods delight
To give such luck in every fight
To Hakon's men—Tor he restores
Their temples on our Norway shores."
Chapter XXIX.
The Emperor Otto returns home.
The Emperor Otto went back to his kingdom in the Saxon land, and parted in friendship with the Danish king. It is said that the Emperor Otto stood godfather to Swend, King Harald's son, and gave him his name; so that he was baptized Otto Swend.[1] King Haraid held fast by his Christianity to his dying day.
King Burislaf went to Vendland, and his son-in-law King Olaf went with him. This battle is related also by Halfred Vandrsedaskald in his song on Olaf:—
"He who through the foaming surges
His white-winged ocean-coursers urges,
Hewed from the Danes, in armour dressed,
The iron bark off mail-clad breast."
Chapter XXX.
Olaf's journey from Vendland.
Olaf Tryggvesson was three years in Vendland when. Geyra his queen fell sick, and she died of her
- ↑ This was Swend, or Swein, afterwards the conqueror of England, and father of Canute the Great.
