strip of land as great as he could cover with a horse's
hide. He gained his request, for the king supposed that it would cost
little, and thought himself happy that so strong a foe begged for a
little boon instead of a great one; supposing that a tiny skin would
cover but a very little land. But Iwar cut the hide out and lengthened
it into very slender thongs, thus enclosing a piece of ground large
enough to build a city on. Then Ella came to repent of his lavishness,
and tardily set to reckoning the size of the hide, measuring the little
skin more narrowly now that it was cut up than when it was whole. For
that which he had thought would encompass a little strip of ground, he
saw lying wide over a great estate. Iwar brought into the city, when
he founded it, supplies that would serve amply for a siege, wishing the
defences to be as good against scarcity as against an enemy.

Meantime, Siward and Biorn came up with a fleet of 400 ships, and with
open challenge declared war against the king. This they did at the
appointed time; and when they had captured him, they ordered the
figure of an eagle to be cut in his back, rejoicing to crush their most
ruthless foe by marking him with the cruellest of birds. Not satisfied
with imprinting a wound on him, they salted the mangled flesh. Thus Ella
was done to death, and Biorn and Siward went back to their own kingdoms.

Iwar governed England for two years. Meanwhile the Danes were stubborn
in revolt, and made war, and delivered the sovereignty publicly to a
certain SIWARD and to ERIK, both of the royal line. The sons of Ragnar,
together with a fleet of 1,700 ships, attacked them at Sleswik, and
destroyed them in a conflict which lasted six months. Barrows remain to
tell the tale. The sound on which the war was conducted has gained
equal glory by the death of Siward. And now the royal stock was almost
extinguished, saving only the sons of Ragnar. Then, when Biorn and Erik
had gone home, Iwar and Siward settled in Denmark, that they might curb
the rebels with a stronger rein, setting Agnar to govern England.
Agnar was stung because the English rejected him, and, with the help
of Siward, chose, rather than foster the insolence of the province that
despised him, to dispeople it and leave its fields, which were matted in
decay, with none to till them. He covered the richest land of the island
with the most hideous desolation, thinking it better to be lord of a
wilderness than of a hea