a
union too lowly.

After this Ragnar prepared an expedition against the Hellespontines,
and summoned an assembly of the Danes, promising that he would give the
people most wholesome laws. He had enacted before that each father of
a household should offer for service that one among his sons whom he
esteemed least; but now he enacted that each should arm the son who was
stoutest of hand or of most approved loyalty. Thereon, taking all the
sons he had by Thora, in addition to Ubbe, he attacked, crushed in
sundry campaigns, and subdued the Hellespont with its king Dia. At last
he involved the same king in disaster after disaster, and slew him.
Dia's sons, Dia and Daxo, who had before married the daughters of the
Russian king, begged forces from their father-in-law, and rushed with
most ardent courage to the work of avenging their father. But Ragnar,
when he saw their boundless army, distrusted his own forces; and he put
brazen horses on wheels that could be drawn easily, took them round on
carriages that would turn, and ordered that they should be driven with
the utmost force against the thickest ranks of the enemy. This device
served so well to break the line of the foe, that the Danes' hope of
conquest seemed to lie more in the engine than in the soldiers: for its
insupportable weight overwhelmed whatever it struck. Thus one of the
leaders was killed, while one made off in flight, and the whole army
of the area of the Hellespont retreated. The Scythians, also, who were
closely related by blood to Daxo on the mother's side, are said to
have been crushed in the same disaster. Their province was made over
to Hwitserk, and the king of the Russians, trusting little in his own
strength, hastened to fly out of the reach of the terrible arms of
Ragnar.

Now Ragnar had spent almost five years in sea-roving, and had quickly
compelled all other nations to submit; but he found the Perms in open
defiance of his sovereignty. He had just conquered them, but their
loyalty was weak. When they heard that he had come they cast spells upon
the sky, stirred up the clouds, and drove them into most furious storms.
This for some time prevented the Danes from voyaging, and caused their
supply of food to fail. Then, again, the storm suddenly abated, and now
they were scorched by the most fervent and burning heat; nor was this
plague any easier to bear than the great and violent cold had been.
Thus the mischievous excess in both directions affec