eatest nobles. For the whole mass
fell into such a panic, that forty of the bravest of the Swedes are said
to have turned and fled. The chief of these, Starkad, had been used to
tremble at no fortune, however cruel, and no danger, however great. But
some strange terror stole upon him, and he chose to follow the flight of
his friends rather than to despise it. I should think that he was filled
with this alarm by the power of heaven, that he might not think himself
courageous beyond the measure of human valour. Thus the prosperity of
mankind is wont ever to be incomplete. Then all these warriors embraced
the service of King Hakon, the mightiest of the rovers, like remnants of
the war drifting to him.

After this Siwald was succeeded by his son SIGAR, who had sons Siwald,
Alf, and Alger, and a daughter Signe. All excelled the rest in spirit
and beauty, and devoted himself to the business of a rover. Such a grace
was shed on his hair, which had a wonderful dazzling glow, that his
locks seemed to shine silvery. At the same time Siward, the king of the
Goths, is said to have had two sons, Wemund and Osten, and a daughter
Alfhild, who showed almost from her cradle such faithfulness to modesty
that she continually kept her face muffled in her robe, lest she should
cause her beauty to provoke the passion of another. Her father banished
her into very close keeping, and gave her a viper and a snake to rear,
wishing to defend her chastity by the protection of these reptiles
when they came to grow up. For it would have been hard to pry into her
chamber when it was barred by so dangerous a bolt. He also enacted that
if any man tried to enter it, and failed, he must straightway yield his
head to be taken off and impaled on a stake. The terror which was thus
attached to wantonness chastened the heated spirits of the young men.

Alf, the son of Sigar, thinking that peril of the attempt only made it
nobler, declared himself a wooer, and went to subdue the beasts that
kept watch beside the room of the maiden; inasmuch as, according to the
decree, the embraces of the maiden were the prize of their subduer. Alf
covered his body with a blood-stained hide in order to make them more
frantic against him. Girt with this, as soon as he had entered the doors
of the enclosure, he took a piece of red-hot steel in the tongs, and
plunged it into the yawning throat of the viper, which he laid dead.
Then he flung his spear full into the gaping mouth of