there fight together to the last, or else come to agreement; and
thereafter, during that winter, were both one and other of them busied
arming their ships, so that in the summer to come might one half of the
general host be abroad.

It was in that summer that there came from Iceland Thorleik Svein
Ulfson; he had heard to wit, when he was north in Norway, that King
Harald had fared south to the River against King Svein. Then did
Thorleik chant this:

''Tis awaited that in spear-storm
On the sea-king's path
The doughty men of inner Throndhjem
Will meet the hardy King.
God only can bring it to pass
That one of them there taketh
Life or land of the other;
Little wots Svein of concord.'

And furthermore he chanted this:

'Harald the harsh who beareth
Oft a red shield off the land,
Is guiding on Budli's waysSec.
The broad long-ships from the north.
But southward o'er the seas,
Doth come the warlike Svein
In animals gold-mouthed, masted,
And painted in colours fair.'

|| To the appointed trysting-place came King Harald with his host, and
there heard that King Svein was to the south and lying off Zealand with
his fleet. Then did King Harald part his host, sending the greater
number of the peasant-host back, but retaining to himself his body-guard
& friends and feudatories, also that part of the peasant-host which had
been mustered nighest to the Danes.

They fared south (west) to Jutland, southward of Vendilskagi,
& thereafter still south past Thioda, & went everywhere with the
war-shield aloft. Thus saith Stuf the Skald:

'Fled Thioda folk from meeting with the King,
Bold was he the stately dealer of blows.
Harald's soul in Heaven.'Sec.

|| They fared southward all the way to Heidaby, and when they were come
thither seized they that town and burned it. Then a man that was thrall
to King Harald wrought this:

'Burnt from one end to another
Was the whole of Heidaby;
Ruthless treatment this, methinks;
Our work, I trow, arouses grief in Svein.
In the town spent I last night:
Ere the eighth hour the flames shot up from the houses.'

|| Likewise Thorleik telleth in his poem that he heard that no battle
befell at the River:

'Among the King's followers
Each asks who doth not wot it
How 'twas that the prince avenger
To Heidaby did hie him,
When Harald from the east with ships
Sped early, without reason,
To the royal town. In sooth
De