re, and reunited the dismembered realm of Denmark into its
original shape. Then he found that Asmund, the King of the Wikars, had
been deprived of his throne by his elder sister; and, angered by such
presumption on the part of a woman, went to Norway with a single ship,
while the war was still undecided, to help him. The battle began; and,
clothed in a purple cloak, with a coif broidered with gold, and with his
hair bound up, he went against the enemy trusting not in arms, but in
his silent certainty of his luck, insomuch that he seemed dressed more
for a feast than a fray. But his spirit did not match his attire.
For, though unarmed and only adorned with his emblems of royalty, he
outstripped the rest who bore arms, and exposed himself, lightly-armed
as he was, to the hottest perils of the battle. For the shafts aimed
against him lost all power to hurt, as if their points had been blunted.
When the other side saw him fighting unarmed, they made an attack, and
were forced for very shame into assailing him more hotly. But Harald,
whole in body, either put them to the sword, or made them take to
flight; and thus he overthrew the sister of Asmund, and restored him his
kingdom. When Asmund offered him the prizes of victory, he said that the
reward of glory was enough by itself; and demeaned himself as greatly
in refusing the gifts as he had in earning them. By this he made all men
admire his self-restraint as much as his valour; and declared that the
victory should give him a harvest not of gold but glory.

Meantime Alver, the King of the Swedes, died leaving sons Olaf, Ing,
and Ingild. One of these, Ing, dissatisfied with the honours his father
bequeathed him, declared war with the Danes in order to extend his
empire. And when Harald wished to inquire of oracles how this war would
end, an old man of great height, but lacking one eye, and clad also in a
hairy mantle, appeared before him, and declared that he was called Odin,
and was versed in the practice of warfare; and he gave him the most
useful instruction how to divide up his army in the field. Now he told
him, whenever he was going to make war with his land-forces, to divide
his whole army into three squadrons, each of which he was to pack into
twenty ranks; the centre squadron, however, he was to extend further
than the rest by the number of twenty men. This squadron he was also to
arrange in the form of the point of a cone or pyramid, and to make the
wings on either