kald:--

"His armour on the ground he flung
His broad axe round his head he swung;
And Norway's king strode on in might,
Through ringing swords, to the wild fight.
His broad axe Hel with both hands wielding,
Shields, helms, and skulls before it yielding,
He seemed with Fate the world to share,
And life or death to deal out there."

This battle was not very long; for the king's men were very fiery, and
where they came the Vindland men fell as thick as tangles heaped up
by the waves on the strand. They who stood behind betook themselves to
flight, and were hewed down like cattle at a slaughter. The king himself
drove the fugitives eastward over the heath, and people fell all over
the moor. So says Thiodolf:--

"And foremost he pursued,
And the flying foe down hewed;
An eagle's feast each stroke,
As the Vindland helms he broke.
He drove them o'er the hearth,
And they fly from bloody death;
But the moor, a mile or more,
With the dead was studded o'er."

It is a common saying, that there never was so great a slaughter of men
in the northern lands, since the time of Christianity, as took place
among the Vindland people on Hlyrskog's Heath. On the other side, not
many of King Magnus's people were killed, although many were wounded.
After the battle the king ordered the wounds of his men to be bound;
but there were not so many doctors in the army as were necessary, so
the king himself went round, and felt the hands of those he thought best
suited for the business; and when he had thus stroked their palms, he
named twelve men, who, he thought, had the softest hands, and told them
to bind the wounds of the people; and although none of them had ever
tried it before, they all became afterwards the best of doctors. There
were two Iceland men among them; the one was Thorkil, a son of Geire,
from Lyngar; the other was Atle, father of Bard Svarte of Selardal, from
whom many good doctors are descended. After this battle, the report
of the miracle which King Olaf the Saint had worked was spread widely
through the country; and it was the common saying of the people, that no
man could venture to fight against King Magnus Olafson, for his father
Saint Olaf stood so near to him that his enemies, on that account, never
could do him harm.

ENDNOTES: (1) Hel--Death: the goddess of Death.--L.

30. BATTLE AT RE.

King Magnus immediately turned