most of the guests,
and bore her off with him in his ship. Thus the bridal was turned into a
funeral; and the Finns might learn the lesson, that hands should not be
laid upon the loves of other men.

After this SWIPDAG, King of Norway, destroyed Gram, who was attempting
to avenge the outrage on his sister and the attempt on his daughter's
chastity. This battle was notable for the presence of the Saxon forces,
who were incited to help Swipdag, not so much by love of him, as by
desire to avenge Henry.

GUTHORM and HADDING, the son of Gram (Groa being the mother of the first
and Signe of the second), were sent over to Sweden in a ship by their
foster-father, Brage (Swipdag being now master of Denmark), and put in
charge of the giants Wagnhofde and Hafle, for guard as well as rearing.

As I shall have briefly to relate doings of these folk, and would fain
not seem to fabricate what conflicts with common belief or outsteps the
faithful truth, it is worth the knowing that there were in old times
three kinds of magicians who by diverse sleights practiced extraordinary
marvels. The first of these were men of monstrous stock, termed
by antiquity giants; these by their exceeding great bodily stature
surpassed the size natural to mankind. Those who came after these were
the first who gained skill in divination from entrails, and attained the
Pythonic art. These surpassed the former in briskness of mental parts as
much as they fell behind them in bodily condition. Constant wars for
the supremacy were waged between these and the giants; till at last the
sorcerers prevailed, subdued the tribe of giants by arms, and acquired
not merely the privilege of ruling, but also the repute of being divine.
Both of these kinds had extreme skill in deluding the eyesight,
knowing how to obscure their own faces and those of others with divers
semblances, and to darken the true aspects of things with beguiling
shapes. But the third kind of men, springing from the natural union of
the first two, did not answer to the nature of their parents either in
bodily size or in practice of magic arts; yet these gained credit for
divinity with minds that were befooled by their jugglings.

Nor must we marvel if, tempted by the prodigious miracles of these folk,
the barbaric world fell to worshipping a false religion, when others
like unto these, who were mere mortals, but were reverenced with divine
honours, beguiled even the shrewdness of the Latins. I have