Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/418

 and therefore agreed to accept the earl's mediation. The earl delivered this judgment between them—that King Swend should marry Gunhild, King Burislaf's daughter; and King Burislaf again Thyre, a daughter of Harald, and King Swend's sister; but that each party should retain their own dominions, and there should be peace between the countries. Then King Swend returned home to Denmark with his wife Gunhild. Their sons were Harald and Knud (Canute) the Great. At that time the Danes threatened much to bring an army into Norway against Earl Hakon.

King Swend made a magnificent feast, to which he invited all the chiefs in his dominions; for he would give the succession-feast, or the heirship-ale, after his father Harald. A short time before, Strut-Haraid in Scania, and Yesete in Bornholm, father to Bue the Thick and to Sigurd, had died; and King Swend sent word to the Jomsburg vikings that Earl Sigvald, and Bue, and their brothers, should come to him, and drink the funeral-ale for their fathers in the same feast the king was giving. The Jomsburg vikings came to the festival with their bravest men, eleven ships of them from Yendland, and twenty ships from Scania. Great was the multitude of people assembled. The first day of the feast, before King Swend went up into his father's high seat, he drank the bowl to his father's memory, and made the solemn vow, that before three winters were past he would go over with his army to England, and either kill King Adalred (Ethelred), or chase him out of the country. This heirship bowl all who were at the feast drank. Thereafter for the chiefs of the Jomsburg vikings was filled and drunk the largest horn to be found, and of the strongest drink. When that bowl was emptied, all men drank Christ's health; and again the fullest measure and the strongest drink were handed to the Jomsburg vikings. The third bowl was to the