"Do thou too, king, if thou hast any wit, flee thy savage bride, lest the she-wolf bring forth a litter like herself, and a beast spring from thee that shall hurt its own father.
"Tell me, Rote, continual derider of cowards, thinkest thou that we have avenged Frode enough, when we have spent seven deaths on the vengeance of one? Lo, those are borne out dead who paid homage not to thy sway in deed, but only in show, and though obsequious they planned treachery.But I always cherished this hope, that noble fathers have noble offspring, who will follow in their character the lot which they received by their birth.
Therefore, Ingild, better now than in time past dost thou deserve to be called lord of Leire and of Denmark.
"When, O King Hakon, I was a beardless youth, and followed thy leading and command in warfare, I hated luxury and wanton souls, and practiced only wars.Training body and mind together, Ibanished every unholy thing from my soul, and shunned the pleasures of the belly, loving deeds of prowess.For those that followed the calling of arms had rough clothing and common gear and short slumbers and scanty rest.Toil drove ease far away, and the time ran by at scanty cost.Not as with some men now, the light of whose reason is obscured by insatiate greed with its blind maw.Some one of these clad in a covering of curiously wrought raiment effeminately guides the fleet-footed (steed), and unknots his dishevelled locks, and lets his hair fly abroad loosely.
"He loves to plead often in the court, and to covet a base pittance, and with this pursuit he comforts his sluggish life, doing with venal tongue the business entrusted to him.
"He outrages the laws by force, he makes armed assault upon men's rights, he tramples on the innocent, he feeds on the wealth of others, he practices debauchery and gluttony, he vexes good fellowship with biting jeers, and goes after harlots as a hoe after the grass.
"The coward falls when battles are lulled in peace.Though he who fears death lie in the heart of the valley, no mantlet shall shelter him.His final fate carries off every living man; doom is not to be averted by skulking.But I, who have shaken the whole world with my slaughters, shall I enjoy a peaceful death?
Shall I be taken up to the stars in a quiet end? Shall I die in my bed without a wound?"BOOK SEVEN.
We are told by historians of old, that Ingild had four sons, of whom three perished in war, while OLAF alone reigned after his father; but some say that Olaf was the son of Ingild's sister, though this opinion is doubtful.Posterity has but an uncertain knowledge of his deeds, which are dim with the dust of antiquity;nothing but the last counsel of his wisdom has been rescued by tradition.For when he was in the last grip of death he took thought for his sons FRODE and HARALD, and bade them have royal sway, one over the land and the other over the sea, and receive these several powers, not in prolonged possession, but in yearly rotation.Thus their share in the rule was made equal; but Frode, who was the first to have control of the affairs of the sea, earned disgrace from his continual defeats in roving.His calamity was due to his sailors being newly married, and preferring nuptial joys at home to the toils of foreign warfare.
After a time Harald, the younger son, received the rule of the sea, and chose soldiers who were unmarried, fearing to be baffled like his brother.Fortune favoured his choice; for he was as glorious a rover as his brother was inglorious; and this earned him his brother's hatred.Moreover, their queens, Signe and Ulfhild, one of whom was the daughter of Siward, King of Sweden, the other of Karl, the governor of Gothland, were continually wrangling as to which was the nobler, and broke up the mutual fellowship of their husbands.Hence Harald and Frode, when their common household was thus shattered, divided up the goods they held in common, and gave more heed to the wrangling altercations of the women than to the duties of brotherly affection.
Moreover, Frode, judging that his brother's glory was a disgrace to himself and brought him into contempt, ordered one of his household to put him to death secretly; for he saw that the man of whom he had the advantage in years was surpassing him in courage.When the deed was done, he had the agent of his treachery privily slain, lest the accomplice should betray the crime.Then, in order to gain the credit of innocence and escape the brand of crime, he ordered a full inquiry to be made into the mischance that had cut off his brother so suddenly.But he could not manage, by all his arts, to escape silent condemnation in the thoughts of the common people.He afterwards asked Karl, "Who had killed Harald?" and Karl replied that it was deceitful in him to ask a question about something which he knew quite well.
These words earned him his death; for Frode thought that he had reproached him covertly with fratricide.
After this, the lives of Harald and Halfdan, the sons of Harald by Signe the daughter of Karl, were attempted by their uncle.
But the guardians devised a cunning method of saving their wards.
For they cut off the claws of wolves and tied them to the soles of their feet; and then made them run along many times so as to harrow up the mud near their dwelling, as well as the ground (then covered with, snow), and give the appearance of an attack by wild beasts.Then they killed the children of some bond-women, tore their bodies into little pieces, and scattered their mangled limbs all about.So when the youths were looked for in vain, the scattered limbs were found, the tracks of the beasts were pointed out, and the ground was seen besmeared with blood.
