e
after he was ashes.

"Why stand ye aghast, who see me colourless? Surely every live man fades
among the dead.

"By some strange enterprise of the power of hell the spirit of Aswid
was sent up from the nether world, and with cruel tooth eats the
fleet-footed (horse), and has given his dog to his abominable jaws. Not
sated with devouring the horse or hound, he soon turned his swift nails
upon me, tearing my cheek and taking off my ear. Hence the hideous sight
of my slashed countenance, the blood-spurts in the ugly wound. Yet the
bringer of horrors did it not unscathed; for soon I cut off his head
with my steel, and impaled his guilty carcase with a stake.

"Why stand ye aghast who see me colourless? Surely every live man fades
among the dead."

Frode had by this taken his fleet over to Halogaland; and here, in order
to learn the numbers of his host, which seemed to surpass all bounds
and measure that could be counted, he ordered his soldiers to pile up
a hill, one stone being cast upon the heap for each man. The enemy also
pursued the same method of numbering their host, and the hills are still
to be seen to convince the visitor. Here Frode joined battle with the
Norwegians, and the day was bloody. At nightfall both sides determined
to retreat. As daybreak drew near, Erik, who had come across the land,
came up and advised the king to renew the battle. In this war the Danes
suffered such slaughter that out of 3,000 ships only 170 are supposed to
have survived. The Northmen, however, were exterminated in such a mighty
massacre, that (so the story goes) there were not men left to till even
a fifth of their villages.

Frode, now triumphant, wished to renew peace among all nations, that
he might ensure each man's property from the inroads of thieves and now
ensure peace to his realms after war. So he hung one bracelet on a crag
which is called Frode's Rock, and another in the district of Wik,
after he had addressed the assembled Norwegians; threatening that these
necklaces should serve to test the honesty which he had decreed, and
threatening that if they were filched punishment should fall on all the
governors of the district. And thus, sorely imperilling the officers,
there was the gold unguarded, hanging up full in the parting of the
roads, and the booty, so easy to plunder, a temptation to all covetous
spirits. (a) Frode also enacted that seafarers should freely use oars
wherever they found them; while to those who