n the pursuit of the Scottish and turn back into Britain. So he
eagerly regained the plunder which he had cunningly sacrificed; and got
back his wealth with the greater ease, that he had so tranquilly let
it go. Then did the British repent of their burden and pay for their
covetousness with their blood. They were sorry to have clutched at greed
with insatiate arms, and ashamed to have hearkened to their own avarice
rather than to the counsel of their king.

Then Frode attacked London, the most populous city of Britain; but the
strength of its walls gave him no chance of capturing it. Therefore he
reigned to be dead, and his guile strengthened him. For Daleman, the
governor of London, on hearing the false news of his death, accepted the
surrender of the Danes, offered them a native general, and suffered them
to enter the town, that they might choose him out of a great throng.
They feigned to be making a careful choice, but beset Daleman in a night
surprise and slew him.

When he had done these things, and gone back to his own land, one Skat
entertained him at a banquet, desirous to mingle his toilsome warfare
with joyous licence. Frode was lying in his house, in royal fashion,
upon cushions of cloth of gold, and a certain Hunding challenged him to
fight. Then, though he had bent his mind to the joys of wassail, he had
more delight in the prospect of a fray than in the presence of a feast,
and wound up the supper with a duel and the duel with a triumph. In the
combat he received a dangerous wound; but a taunt of Hakon the champion
again roused him, and, slaying his challenger, he took vengeance for
the disturbance of his rest. Two of his chamber-servants were openly
convicted of treachery, and he had them tied to vast stones and
drowned in the sea; thus chastising the weighty guilt of their souls by
fastening boulders to their bodies. Some relate that Ulfhild gave him a
coat which no steel could pierce, so that when he wore it no missile's
point could hurt him. Nor must I omit how Frode was wont to sprinkle his
food with brayed and pounded atoms of gold, as a resource against the
usual snares of poisoners. While he was attacking Ragnar, the King of
Sweden, who had been falsely accused of treachery, he perished, not by
the spears, but stifled in the weight of his arms and by the heat of his
own body.

Frode left three sons, Halfdan, Ro, and Skat, who were equal in valour,
and were seized with an equal desire for the thro