o much heed for honour did he
think that he must take in all things. As he rode up close, the king
attacked him just under the porch of the folding doors, and would have
thrust him through with his javelin, but that the hard shirt of mail
threw off the blade. Amleth received a slight wound, and went to the
spot where he had bidden the Scottish warriors wait on duty. He then
sent back to the king his new wife's spy, whom he had captured. This man
was to bear witness that he had secretly taken from the coffer where it
was kept the letter which was meant for his mistress, and thus was
to make the whole blame recoil on Hermutrude, by this studied excuse
absolving Amleth from the charge of treachery. The king without tarrying
pursued Amleth hotly as he fled, and deprived him of most of his forces.
So Amleth, on the morrow, wishing to fight for dear life, and utterly
despairing of his powers of resistance, tried to increase his apparent
numbers. He put stakes under some of the dead bodies of his comrades to
prop them up, set others on horseback like living men, and tied others
to neighbouring stones, not taking off any of their armour, and dressing
them in due order of line and wedge, just as if they were about to
engage. The wing composed of the dead was as thick as the troop of the
living. It was an amazing spectacle this, of dead men dragged out to
battle, and corpses mustered to fight. The plan served him well, for the
very figures of the dead men showed like a vast array as the sunbeams
struck them. For those dead and senseless shapes restored the original
number of the army so well, that the mass might have been unthinned by
the slaughter of yesterday. The Britons, terrified at the spectacle,
fled before fighting, conquered by the dead men whom they had overcome
in life. I cannot tell whether to think more of the cunning or of the
good fortune of this victory. The Danes came down on the king as he was
tardily making off, and killed him. Amleth, triumphant, made a great
plundering, seized the spoils of Britain, and went back with his wives
to his own land.

Meanwhile Rorik had died, and Wiglek, who had come to the throne, had
harassed Amleth's mother with all manner of insolence and stripped her
of her royal wealth, complaining that her son had usurped the kingdom of
Jutland and defrauded the King of Leire, who had the sole privilege of
giving and taking away the rights of high offices. This treatment Amleth
took with su