answered in the following song:

"By Hercules, I came on a countless throng, a throng that neither earth
nor wave could hold. Thick flared all their camp-fires, and the whole
wood blazed up; the flame betokened a numberless array. The earth sank
under the fraying of the horse-hoofs; creaking waggons rattled swiftly.
The wheels rumbled, the driver rode upon the winds, so that the chariots
sounded like thunder. The earth hardly bore the throngs of men-at-arms,
speeding on confusedly; they trod it, but it could not bear their
weight. I thought that the air crashed and the earth was shaken, so
mighty was the motion of the stranger army. For I saw fifteen standards
flickering at once; each of them had a hundred lesser standards, and
after each of these could have been seen twenty; and the captains in
their order were equal in number to the standards."

Now when Frode asked wherewithal he was to resist so many, Erik
instructed him that he must return home and suffer the enemy first to
perish of their own hugeness. His counsel was obeyed, the advice being
approved as heartily as it was uttered. But the Huns went on through
pathless deserts, and, finding provisions nowhere, began to run the
risk of general starvation; for it was a huge and swampy district, and
nothing could be found to relieve their want. At last, when the beasts
of burden had been cut down and eaten, they began to scatter, lacking
carriages as much as food. Now their straying from the road was as
perilous to them as their hunger. Neither horses nor asses were spared,
nor did they refrain from filthy garbage. At last they did not even
spare dogs: to dying men every abomination was lawful; for there is
nothing too hard for the bidding of extreme need. At last when they
were worn out with hunger, there came a general mortality. Bodies were
carried out for burial without end, for all feared to perish, and none
pitied the perishing. Fear indeed had cast out humanity. So first the
divisions deserted from the king little by little; and then the army
melted away by companies. He was also deserted by the prophet Ygg, a man
of unknown age, which was prolonged beyond the human span; this man
went as a deserter to Frode, and told him of all the preparations of the
Huns.

Meanwhile Hedin, prince of a considerable tribe of the Norwegians,
approached the fleet of Frode with a hundred and fifty vessels. Choosing
twelve out of these, he proceeded to cruise nearer, signallin