assy, and the business
could best be done by Erik, for whose efforts nothing seemed too hard.
He also said that he would stone Gotwar to death for her complicity in
concealing the crime; but Hanund he would restore to her father, that he
might not have a traitress against his life dwelling amongst the Danes.
Erik approved his plans, and promised his help to carry out his bidding;
except that he declared that it would be better to marry the queen, when
she had been put away, to Roller, of whom his sovereignty need have no
fears. This opinion Frode received reverentially, as though it were some
lesson vouchsafed from above. The queen also, that she might not seem
to be driven by compulsion, complied, as women will, and declared that
there was no natural necessity to grieve, and that all distress of
spirit was a creature of fancy: and, moreover, that one ought not to
bewail the punishment that befell one's deserts. And so the brethren
celebrated their marriages together, one wedding the sister of the king,
and the other his divorced queen.

Then they sailed back to Norway, taking their wives with them. For
the women could not be torn from the side of their husbands, either by
distance of journey or by dread of peril, but declared that they would
stick to their lords like a feather to something shaggy. They found that
Ragnar was dead, and that Kraka had already married one Brak. Then they
remembered the father's treasure, dug up the money, and bore it off.
But Erik's fame had gone before him, and Gotar had learnt all his good
fortune. Now when Gotar learnt that he had come himself, he feared that
his immense self-confidence would lead him to plan the worst against the
Norwegians, and was anxious to take his wife from him and marry him to
his own daughter in her place: for his queen had just died, and he was
anxious to marry the sister of Frode more than anyone. Erik, when he
learnt of his purpose, called his men together, and told them that his
fortune had not yet got off from the reefs. Also he said that he saw,
that as a bundle that was not tied by a band fell to pieces, so likewise
the heaviest punishment that was not constrained on a man by his own
fault suddenly collapsed. They had experienced this of late with Frode;
for they saw how at the hardest pass their innocence had been protected
by the help of the gods; and if they continued to preserve it they
should hope for like aid in their adversity. Next, they must prete