h had been
won in the light of day, for he took to a secret ambuscade instead
of open bravery. This affair was as profitable in its issue as it was
unhandsome in the doing.

Ragnar was equally as well pleased at the flight of the Finns as he had
been at that of Karl, and owned that he had found more strength in that
defenceless people than in the best equipped soldiery; for he found the
heaviest weapons of the Romans easier to bear than the light darts of
this ragged tribe. Here, after killing the king of the Perms and routing
the king of the Finns, Ragnar set an eternal memorial of his victory
on the rocks, which bore the characters of his deeds on their face, and
looked down upon them.

Meanwhile Ubbe was led by his grandfather, Esbern, to conceive an unholy
desire for the throne; and, casting away all thought of the reverence
due to his father, he claimed the emblem of royalty for his own head.

When Ragnar heard of his arrogance from Kelther and Thorkill, the earls
of Sweden, he made a hasty voyage towards Gothland. Esbern, finding that
these men were attached with a singular loyalty to the side of Ragnar,
tried to bribe them to desert the king. But they did not swerve from
their purpose, and replied that their will depended on that of Biorn,
declaring that not a single Swede would dare to do what went against his
pleasure. Esbern speedily made an attempt on Biorn himself, addressing
him most courteously through his envoys. Biorn said that he would never
lean more to treachery than to good faith, and judged that it would be a
most abominable thing to prefer the favour of an infamous brother to the
love of a most righteous father. The envoys themselves he punished with
hanging, because they counselled him to so grievous a crime. The Swedes,
moreover, slew the rest of the train of the envoys in the same way, as
a punishment for their mischievous advice. So Esbern, thinking that his
secret and stealthy manoeuvres did not succeed fast enough, mustered his
forces openly, and went publicly forth to war. But Iwar, the governor of
Jutland, seeing no righteousness on either side of the impious conflict,
avoided all unholy war by voluntary exile.

Ragnar attacked and slew Esbern in the bay that is called in Latin
Viridis; he cut off the dead man's head and bade it be set upon the
ship's prow, a dreadful sight for the seditious. But Ubbe took to
flight, and again attacked his father, having revived the war in
Zealand. Ubbe