did wield.

13. Up then rose Alff in Odderskier;
He sprang on his red-roan steed;
And came he so to Upsala
Ere both the warriors were dead.

14. "O hearken, hearken, Young Helmer,
Beloved son of mine:
Why does the life blood from thy head
In streams come running down?"

15. It was Young Helmer the Warrior,
And his father answered he:
"My brother Angelfyr could not have the maid,
And therefore he wrought this ill to me.

16. "My body is pierced with fifteen wounds,
All tainted with poison full sore;
And had I only one of them
I could not live an hour."

17. It was Alff in Odderskier,
And an oak he uprooted;
He struck with the oak Young Angelfyr,
Till he lay on the earth stone dead.

18. Now both these warriors are lying dead,
And dead lie they in their grave;
And the King he is ready to give his daughter
To the man whom he himself will have.

INTRODUCTION TO THE FAROESE BALLAD OF ARNGRIM'S SONS

The _Ballad of Arngrim's Sons_ was first taken down by Svabo towards
the close of the eighteenth century. He never published it, but his
MS. (III. 9) is preserved in the Royal Library at Copenhagen. In 1848
V. U. Hammershaimb took the ballad down again from oral recitation
on Sando and published it in the _Antiquarisk Tidsskrift_, 1849-1851
(Copenhagen, 1852). He had, however, consulted Svabo's version, for he
says in the prefatory note to the ballad:

It is entirely confused in Svabo's version in the Royal
Library. I have therefore kept to the version which I got on
Sando, which in the main points agrees with the Saga. Only in
the conclusion and two other passages have I followed Svabo's
version.

By 1855, however, it would seem that his view had changed. In his
prefatory note to the _Ballad of Arngrim's Sons_, published in
_Nordiske Oldskrifter_, vols. 18-19, Part II (Copenhagen, 1855), he
writes:

The version given by Svabo is at variance with the Saga and
has many internal discrepancies arising mainly from the fact
that Hjalmar and Angantyr are here taken to be brothers, as
in the Danish ballad. In the _Antiquarisk Tidsskrift_ for
1849-1851 I published another version which I took down
in Sando in 1848, and in which I made some use of Svabo's
version. My version corresponds exactly with the _Harvarar
S