undary between Westmanland and Dalecarlia)
could furnish at the utmost?" Answer was made to him, full twenty
thousand men. Yet further he asked where so many mouths might obtain
sustenance? To this it was replied that the people were not used to
dainty meats; they drunk for the most part nothing but water, and, if
need were, could be satisfied with bark-bread. Then Beldenacke declared:
"Men who eat wood and drink water the devil himself could not overcome,
much less anyone else. Brethren, let us leave this place!" The story
makes the Danes hereupon prepare for breaking up their encampment.
However this may be, it is certain that Peter Swenson, with the
Dalesmen, crossed the Dal secretly, by a circuit, at Utsund's Ferry,
surprised the camp, and put the foe to rout.

Gustavus had himself dealt with the inhabitants of Helsingland and
Gestricland, in order to insure himself against leaving foes in the
rear, and, after his return to the Dales, he prepared for an expedition
into the lower country. He assembled his troops at Hedemora, and sought
to inure them to habits of order and obedience by military exercises.
The dale peasant had no fire-arms and knew little of discipline; his
weapons were the axe, the bow, the pike, and the sling, the latter
sometimes throwing pieces of red-hot iron. Gustavus instructed his men
to fashion their arrows in a more effective shape, and increased the
length of the spear by four or five feet, with a view to repel the
attacks of cavalry. He caused monetary tokens to be struck--an expedient
which seems to have been not uncommon in Sweden, since, from a remote
period, even leather money is mentioned. The coins now struck at
Hedemora were of copper, with a small admixture of silver, similar to
those introduced by the King, and called "Christian's klippings;" on one
side was the impress of an armed man; on the other, arrows laid
crosswise, with three crowns.

Gustavus broke from his quarters, and marched across the Long Wood into
Westmanland. His course lay through districts which bore traces yet
fresh of the enemy's passage. The peasantry rose as he advanced. On St.
George's Day, April 23d, he mustered his army at the church of
Romfertuna. The number is stated by the chronicles at from fifteen to
twenty thousand men, yet on the correctness of this little reliance can
be placed, even if we did not absolutely class this account with those
which compare the multitude of Dalesmen in the fight of Brun