quarrel
against the Swedes, 'and the Norse king is far from us,' they said,
'because the main power of his land is far: and this is the first thing
we must do, send men to the Swedish king and try to make agreement with
him; but if that cannot be done, then take we the other choice of
seeking the protection of the Norse king.'

So the landowners asked Emund to go on this mission, to which he
assented, and went his way with thirty men, and came to East Gautland.
There he had many kinsmen and friends, and was well received. He had
there some talk with the wisest men about this difficulty, and they were
quite agreed in thinking that what the King was doing with them was
against use and law. Then Emund went on to Sweden, and there talked with
many great men; and there too all were of the same mind. He then held on
his way till he came on the evening of a day to Upsala. There they
found them good lodging and passed the night. The next day Emund went
before the King as he sat in council with many around him. Emund went up
to the King, and bowed down before him, and greeted him. The King looked
at him, returned his greeting, and asked him what tidings he brought.

Emund answered: 'Little tidings are there with us Gauts. But this we
deem a novelty: Atti the Silly in Vermaland went in the winter up to the
forest with his snowshoes and bow; we call him a mighty hunter. On the
fell he got such store of grey fur that he had filled his sledge with as
much as he could manage to draw after him. He turned him homeward from
the forest; but then he saw a squirrel in the wood, and shot at him and
missed. Then was he wroth, and, loosing from him his sledge, he ran
after the squirrel. But the squirrel went ever where the wood was
thickest, sometimes near the tree roots, sometimes high among the
boughs, and passed among the boughs from tree to tree. But when Atti
shot at him, the arrow always flew above or below him, while the
squirrel never went so that Atti could not see him. So eager was he in
this chase that he crept after him for the whole day, but never could he
get this squirrel. And when darkness came on, he lay down in the snow,
as he was wont, and so passed the night; 'twas drifting weather. Next
day Atti went to seek his sledge, but he never found it again; and so he
went home. Such are my tidings, sire.'

Said the King: 'Little tidings these, if there be no more to say.'

Emund answered: 'Yet further a while ago happened this,