fety of
their land to lordship of a foreign realm; and Uffe went back to his own
country, now rid of an enemy's arms.

Hadding, on returning from the Swedish war, perceived that his treasury,
wherein he was wont to store the wealth he had gotten by the spoils
of war, had been forced and robbed, and straightway hanged its keeper
Glumer, proclaiming by a crafty device, that, if any of the culprits
brought about the recovery of the stolen goods, he should have the
same post of honour as Glumer had filled. Upon this promise, one of
the guilty men became more zealous to reap the bounty than to hide his
crime, and had the money brought back to the king. His confederates
fancied he had been received into the king's closest friendship, and
believed that the honours paid him were as real as they were lavish; and
therefore they also, hoping to be as well rewarded, brought back their
moneys and avowed their guilt. Their confession was received at first
with promotion and favours, and soon visited with punishment, thus
bequeathing a signal lesson against being too confiding. I should judge
that men, whose foolish blabbing brought them to destruction, when
wholesome silence could have ensured their safety, well deserved to
atone upon the gallows for their breach of reticence.

After this Hadding passed the whole winter season in the utmost
preparation for the renewal of the war. When the frosts had been melted
by the springtime sun, he went back to Sweden and there spent five years
in warfare. By dint of this prolonged expedition, his soldiers, having
consumed all their provision, were reduced almost to the extremity of
emaciation, and began to assuage their hunger with mushrooms from the
wood. At last, under stress of extreme necessity, they devoured their
horses, and finally satisfied themselves with the carcases of dogs.
Worse still, they did not scruple to feed upon human limbs. So, when the
Danes were brought unto the most desperate straits, there sounded in
the camp, in the first sleep of the night, and no man uttering it, the
following song:

"With foul augury have ye left the abode of your country, thinking to
harry these fields in War. What idle notion mocks your minds? What blind
self-confidence has seized your senses, that ye think this soil can thus
be won. The might of Sweden cannot yield or quail before the War of the
stranger; but the whole of your column shall melt away when it begins
to assault our people in War.