a certain song that
a ghastlier wound had never befallen him at any time; for, though the
divisions of his gashed head were bound up by the surrounding outer
skin, yet the livid unseen wound concealed a foul gangrene below.

Starkad conquered, killed Hugleik and routed the Irish; and had the
actors beaten whom chance made prisoner; thinking it better to order a
pack of buffoons to be ludicrously punished by the loss of their skins
than to command a more deadly punishment and take their lives. Thus
he visited with a disgraceful chastisement the baseborn throng
of professional jugglers, and was content to punish them with the
disgusting flouts of the lash. Then the Danes ordered that the wealth of
the king should be brought out of the treasury in the city of Dublin and
publicly pillaged. For so vast a treasure had been found that none took
much pains to divide it strictly.

After this, Starkad was commissioned, together with Win, the chief of
the Sclavs, to check the revolt of the East. They, having fought against
the armies of the Kurlanders, the Sembs, the Sangals, and, finally, all
the Easterlings, won splendid victories everywhere.

A champion of great repute, named Wisin, settled upon a rock in Russia
named Ana-fial, and harried both neighbouring and distant provinces with
all kinds of outrage. This man used to blunt the edge of every weapon by
merely looking at it. He was made so bold in consequence, by having lost
all fear of wounds, that he used to carry off the wives of distinguished
men and drag them to outrage before the eyes of their husbands. Starkad
was roused by the tale of this villainy, and went to Russia to destroy
the criminal; thinking nothing too hard to overcome, he challenged
Wisin, attacked him, made even his tricks useless to him, and slew him.
For Starkad covered his blade with a very fine skin, that it might not
met the eye of the sorcerer; and neither the power of his sleights
nor his great strength were any help to Wisin, for he had to yield to
Starkad. Then Starkad, trusting in his bodily strength, fought with
and overcame a giant at Byzantium, reputed invincible, named Tanne, and
drove him to fly an outlaw to unknown quarters of the earth. Therefore,
finding that he was too mighty for any hard fate to overcome him, he
went to the country of Poland, and conquered in a duel a champion
whom our countrymen name Wasce; but the Teutons, arranging the letters
differently, call him Wilzce.

Mean