red him limb by limb, and flung him across
into the house whence he had issued in his haste. This insult quickly
aroused Gunn and Grim: they ran out by different side-doors, and charged
Ole both at once, despising his age and strength. He wounded them
fatally; and, when their bodily powers were quite spent, Grim, who could
scarce muster a final gasp, and whose force was almost utterly gone,
with his last pants composed this song:

"Though we be weak in frame, and the loss of blood has drained our
strength; since the life-breath, now drawn out by my wound, scarce
quivers softly in my pierced breast:

"I counsel that we should make the battle of our last hour glorious
with dauntless deeds, that none may say that a combat has anywhere been
bravelier waged or harder fought;

"And that our wild strife while we bore arms may, when our weary flesh
has found rest in the tomb, win us the wage of immortal fame.

"Let our first stroke crush the shoulder-blades of the foe, let our
steel cut off both his hands; so that, when Stygian Pluto has taken us,
a like doom may fall on Ole also, and a common death tremble over three,
and one urn cover the ashes of three."

Here Grim ended. But his father, rivalling his indomitable spirit, and
wishing to give some exhortation in answer to his son's valiant speech,
thus began:

"What though our veins be wholly bloodless, and in our frail body the
life be brief, yet our last fight be so strong and strenuous that it
suffer not the praise of us to be brief also.

"Therefore aim the javelin first at the shoulders and arms of the foe,
so that the work of his hands may be weakened; and thus when we are
gone three shall receive a common sepulchre, and one urn alike for three
shall cover our united dust."

When he had said this, both of them, resting on their knees (for the
approach of death had drained their strength), made a desperate effort
to fight Ole hand to hand, in order that, before they perished, they
might slay their enemy also; counting death as nothing if only they
might envelope their slayer in a common fall. Ole slew one of them with
his sword, the other with his hound. But even he gained no bloodless
victory; for though he had been hitherto unscathed, now at last he
received a wound in front. His dog diligently licked him over, and he
regained his bodily strength: and soon, to publish sure news of his
victory, he hung the bodies of the robbers upon gibbets in wide view.
Moreov