Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 2.djvu/390

 382 CHRONICLE OF THE saga viii. Vendland with all his forces, which made a very large army altogether. Arnor, the earl's scald, tells of it thus : — "Now in this strophe, royal youth! I tell no more than the plain truth. Thy armed outfit from the strand Left many a keel- trace on the sand, And never did a king before So many ships to any shore Lead on. as thou to Vendland's isle : The Vendland men in fright recoil." Now when King Magnus came to Vendland he attacked Jomsburg, and soon took the fortress, killing many people, burning and destroying both in the town and in the country all around, and making the greatest havoc. So says Arnor, the earl's scald : — " The robbers, hemmed 'twist death and fire, Knew not how to escape thy ire; O'er Jomsburg castle's highest towers Thy wrath the whirlwind-fire pours. The heathen on his false gods calls, And trembles even in their halls; And by the light from its own flame The king this viking-hold o'ercame." 'S Many people in Vendland submitted to King Mag- nus, but many more got out of the way and fled. King Magnus returned to Denmark, and prepared to take his winter abode there, and sent away the Danish, and also a great many of the Norwegian people, he had brought with him. Chavtf.r Xhe same winter in which Swend Ulfsson was XXVI. Swend re- raised to the government of the whole Danish domi- tftie^f he n i° ns ? an d had made friends of a great number of the king. principal chiefs in Denmark, and obtained the affec- tions of the people, he assumed, by the advice of many of the chiefs, the title of king. But when in the spring thereafter he heard that King Magnus had come from the north with a great army, Swend went over to Scania, from thence up to Gotland, and so on to Sweden to his relation King Onund, where he re-