y man who, being challenged, refused
to fight, used to be covered with disgrace in the sight of all men. Thus
Helge was tortured on the one side by the shame of refusing the battle,
on the other by the dread of waging it. For he thought himself attacked
unfairly and counter to the universal laws of combat, as he had
apparently undertaken to fight nine men single-handed. While he was
thus reflecting his betrothed told him that he would need help, and
counselled him to refrain from the battle, wherein it seemed he would
encounter only death and disgrace, especially as he had not stipulated
for any definite limit to the number of those who were to be his
opponents. He should therefore avoid the peril, and consult his safety
by appealing to Starkad, who was sojourning among the Swedes; since it
was his way to help the distressed, and often to interpose successfully
to retrieve some dismal mischance.

Then Helge, who liked the counsel thus given very well, took a small
escort and went into Sweden; and when he reached its most famous city,
Upsala, he forbore to enter, but sent in a messenger who was to invite
Starkad to the wedding of Frode's daughter, after first greeting him
respectfully to try him. This courtesy stung Starkad like an insult. He
looked sternly on the youth, and said, "That had he not had his beloved
Frode named in his instructions, he should have paid dearly for his
senseless mission. He must think that Starkad, like some buffoon or
trencherman, was accustomed to rush off to the reek of a distant kitchen
for the sake of a richer diet." Helge, when his servant had told him
this, greeted the old man in the name of Frode's daughter, and asked him
to share a battle which he had accepted upon being challenged, saying
that he was not equal to it by himself, the terms of the agreement being
such as to leave the number of his adversaries uncertain. Starkad, when
he had heard the time and place of the combat, not only received the
suppliant well, but also encouraged him with the offer of aid, and told
him to go back to Denmark with his companions, telling him that he would
find his way to him by a short and secret path. Helge departed, and if
we may trust report, Starkad, by sheer speed of foot, travelled in one
day's journeying over as great a space as those who went before him are
said to have accomplished in twelve; so that both parties, by a chance
meeting, reached their journey's end, the palace of Ingild, at th