great men in those
days. To show what these tales were like we take from the sagas the
marvellous record of Ragnar and his wives.

In East Gothland in the ancient days there lived a mighty jarl, or earl,
named Herroed, who was descended from the gods. He had a daughter named
Tora, who was famed for her beauty and virtue, but proved as hard to win
for a wife as Princess Torborg had been. She dwelt in a high room which
had a wall built around it like a castle, and was called Castle Deer,
because she surpassed all other women in beauty as much as the deer
surpasses all other animals.

Her father, who was very fond of her, gave her as a toy a small and
wonderfully beautiful snake which he had received in a charmed egg in
Bjarmaland. It proved to be an unwelcome gift. The snake was at first
coiled in a little box, but soon grew until the box would not hold it,
and in time was so big that the room would not hold it. So huge did it
become in the end that it lay coiled in a ring around the outer walls,
being so long that its head and tail touched.

It got to be so vicious that no one dared come near it except the maiden
and the man who fed it, and his task was no light one, for it devoured an
ox at a single meal. The jarl was sorry enough now that he had given his
daughter such a present. It was one not easy to get rid of, dread of the
snake having spread far and wide, and though he offered his daughter with
a great dower to the man who should kill it, no one for a long time
ventured to strive for the reward. The venom which it spat out was enough
to destroy any warrior.

At length a suitor for the hand of the lovely princess was found in
Ragnar, the young son of Sigurd Ring, then one of the greatest monarchs
of the age, with all Sweden and Norway under his sway, as the sagas tell.
Ragnar, though still a boy, had gained fame as a dauntless warrior, and
was a fit man to dare the venture with the great snake, though for a long
time he seemed to pay no heed to the princess.

But meanwhile he had made for himself a strange coat. It was wrought out
of a hairy hide, which he boiled in pitch, drew through sand, and then
dried and hardened in the sun. The next summer he sailed to East
Gothland, hid his ships in a small bay, and at dawn of the next day
proceeded toward the maiden's bower, spear in hand and wearing his
strange coat.

There lay the dreaded serpent, coiled in a ring round the wall. Ragnar,
nothing daunted, struck i