back to Gewar and enjoyed the coveted embraces of Nanna. Next,
having treated Helgi and Thora very generously, he brought his new queen
back to Sweden, being as much honoured by all for his victory as Balder
was laughed at for his flight.

At this time the nobles of the Swedes repaired to Demnark to pay their
tribute; but Hother, who had been honoured as a king by his countrymen
for the splendid deeds of his father, experienced what a lying pander
Fortune is. For he was conquered in the field by Balder, whom a little
before he had crushed, and was forced to flee to Gewar, thus losing
while a king that victory which he had won as a common man. The
conquering Balder, in order to slake his soldiers, who were parched with
thirst, with the blessing of a timely draught, pierced the earth deep
and disclosed a fresh spring. The thirsty ranks made with gaping lips
for the water that gushed forth everywhere. The traces of these springs,
eternised by the name, are thought not quite to have dried up yet,
though they have ceased to well so freely as of old. Balder was
continually harassed by night phantoms feigning the likeness of Nanna,
and fell into such ill health that he could not so much as walk,
and began the habit of going his journeys in a two horse car or a
four-wheeled carriage. So great was the love that had steeped his heart
and now had brought him down almost to the extremity of decline. For he
thought that his victory had brought him nothing if Nanna was not his
prize. Also Frey, the regent of the gods, took his abode not far from
Upsala, where he exchanged for a ghastly and infamous sin-offering the
old custom of prayer by sacrifice, which had been used by so many
ages and generations. For he paid to the gods abominable offerings, by
beginning to slaughter human victims.

Meantime Hother (1) learned that Denmark lacked leaders, and that
Hiartuar had swiftly expiated the death of Rolf; and he used to say
that chance had thrown into his hands that to which he could scarce
have aspired. For first, Rolf, whom he ought to have killed, since he
remembered that Rolf's father had slain his own, had been punished by
the help of another; and also, by the unexpected bounty of events,
a chance had been opened to him of winning Denmark. In truth, if the
pedigree of his forefathers were rightly traced, that realm was his by
ancestral right! Thereupon he took possession, with a very great fleet,
of Isefjord, a haven of Zealand, so