repared, and the news spread quickly.

40. EIRIK AND HAKON MAKE A WAR LEVY.

When Earl Eirik, the son of Hakon, who at that time was in Raumarike,
heard the tidings, he immediately gathered troops, and went to the
Uplands, and thence over the mountains to Throndhjem, and joined
his father Earl Hakon. Thord Kolbeinson speaks of this in the lay of
Eirik:--

"News from the south are flying round;
The bonde comes with look profound,
Bad news of bloody battles bringing,
Of steel-clad men, of weapons ringing.
I hear that in the Danish land
Long-sided ships slide down the strand,
And, floating with the rising tide,
The ocean-coursers soon will ride."

The earls Hakon and Eirik had war-arrows split up and sent round the
Throndhjem country; and despatched messages to both the Mores, North
More and South More, and to Raumsdal, and also north to Naumudal and
Halogaland. They summoned all the country to provide both men and ships.
So it is said in Eirik's lay:

"The skald must now a war-song raise,
The gallant active youth must praise,
Who o'er the ocean's field spreads forth
Ships, cutters, boats, from the far north.
His mighty fleet comes sailing by,--
The people run to see them glide,
Mast after mast, by the coast-side."

Earl Hakon set out immediately to the south, to More, to reconnoitre and
gather people; and Earl Eirik gathered an army from the north to follow.

41. EXPEDITION OF THE JOMSBORG VIKINGS.

The Jomsborg vikings assembled their fleet in Limafjord, from whence
they went to sea with sixty sail of vessels. When they came under the
coast of Agder, they steered northwards to Rogaland with their fleet,
and began to plunder when they came into the earl's territory; and so
they sailed north along the coast, plundering and burning. A man, by
name Geirmund, sailed in a light boat with a few men northwards to More,
and there he fell in with Earl Hakon, stood before his dinner table,
and told the earl the tidings of an army from Denmark having come to
the south end of the land. The earl asked if he had any certainty of it.
Then Geirmund stretched forth one arm, from which the hand was cut off,
and said, "Here is the token that the enemy is in the land." Then the
earl questioned him particularly about this army. Geirmund says it
consists of Jomsborg vikings, who have killed many people, and plundered
all around. "And hastily an