ned with the dishes, and the
bowls brimmed over with divers liquors. Nor did they use wine pure and
simple, but, with juices sought far and wide, composed a nectar of many
flavours. The dishes glistened with delicious foods, being filled mostly
with the spoils of the chase; though the flesh of tame animals was not
lacking either. The natives took care to drink more sparingly than the
guests; for the latter felt safe, and were tempted to make an orgy;
while the others, meditating treachery, had lost all temptations to be
drunken. So the Danes, who, if I may say so with my country's leave,
were seasoned to drain the bowl against each other, took quantities of
wine. The Britons, when they saw that the Danes were very drunk, began
gradually to slip away from the banquet, and, leaving their guests
within the hall, made immense efforts, first to block the doors of the
palace by applying bars and all kinds of obstacles, and then to set fire
to the house. The Danes were penned inside the hall, and when the fire
began to spread, battered vainly at the doors; but they could not get
out, and soon attempted to make a sally by assaulting the wall. And the
Angles, when they saw that it was tottering under the stout attack of
the Danes, began to shove against it on their side, and to prop the
staggering pile by the application of large blocks on the outside, to
prevent the wall being shattered and releasing the prisoners. But
at last it yielded to the stronger hand of the Danes, whose efforts
increased with their peril; and those pent within could sally out with
ease. Then Frode bade the trumpet strike in, to summon the band that
had been posted in ambush; and these, roused by the note of the clanging
bugle, caught the enemy in their own trap; for the King of the Britons,
with countless hosts of his men, was utterly destroyed. Thus the
band helped Frode doubly, being both the salvation of his men and the
destruction of his enemies.

Meantime the renown of the Danish bravery spread far, and moved the
Irish to strew iron calthrops on the ground, in order to make their land
harder to invade, and forbid access to their shores. Now the Irish use
armour which is light and easy to procure. They crop the hair close with
razors, and shave all the hair off the back of the head, that they may
not be seized by it when they run away. They also turn the points of
their spears towards the assailant, and deliberately point their sword
against the pur