Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 2.djvu/393

 KINGS OF NORWAY. 385 had a red silk shirt outside over his clothes, and had saga viil in his hands the battle-axe called Hel * which had be- longed to King Olaf. King Magnus ran on before all his men to the enemy's army, and instantly hewed down with both hands every man who came against him. So says Arnor, the earl's scald : — ee His armour on the ground he flung, His broad axe round his head he swung; And Norway's king strode on in might, Through ringing swords, to the wild fight. His broad axe Hel with both hands wielding, Shields, helms, and sculls before it yielding, He seemed with Fate the world to share, And life or death to deal out there." This battle was not very long ; for the king's men were very fiery, and where they came the Vendland men fell as thick as tangles heaped up by the waves on the strand. They who stood behind betook them- selves to flight, and were hewed down like cattle at a slaughter. The king himself drove the fugitives east- ward over the heath, and people fell all over the moor. So says Thiodolf: — " And foremost he pursued, And the flying foe down hewed; An eagle's feast each stroke, As the Vendland helms he broke. He drove them o'er the heath. And they fly from bloody death; But the moor, a mile or more, With the dead was studded o'er." It is a common saying, that there never was so great a slaughter of men in the northern lands, since the time of Christianity, as took place among the Vendland people on Lyrskog's Heath. On the other side, not many of King Magnus's people were killed, although many were wounded. It is told in the Bre- men Bookf, that the Danes had killed Rettebur, a •j* Historia Ecclesiastica Adami Bremensis, lib. ii. cap. 59- Adam of Bremen wrote about 1075, about thirty years only after this battle. VOL. II. C C
 * Hel — Death; the goddess of Death.