Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 3.djvu/44

 32 CHRONICLE OF THE SAGA IX. King Ha- rald the Stern. Chapter XXXIV. Of the ar- maments of King Swend Ulfsson and King Harald. had two daughters ; the one Maria, the other Inglgerd. The spring after the foray which has just been re- lated King Harald ordered the people out, and went with them to Denmark, and herried there, and did so summer after summer thereafter. So says StuiF the Scald: — " Falster lay waste, as people tell, — The raven in other isles fared well. The Danes were every where in fear. For the dread foray every year." King Swend ruled over all the Danish dominions after King Magnus's death. He sat quiet all the winter ; but in summer he lay out in his ships with all his people, and it was said he would go north to Norway with the Danish army, and make not less havoc there than King Harald had made in Denmark. King Swend proposed to King Harald in winter to meet him the following summer at the Gotha river, and fight until in the battle-field their differences were ended, or they were settled peacefully. They made ready on both sides all winter with their ships, and called out in summer one half of all the fighting men. The same summer came Thorleik the Fair out of Iceland, and composed a poem about King Swend Ulfsson. He heard, when he arrived in Norway, that King Harald had sailed south to the Gotha river against King Swend. Then Thorleik sang this : — " The wily Swend, I think, will meet These inland Norsemen fleet to fleet : The arrow-storm, and heaving sea. His vantage-fight and field will be. God only knows the end of strife, Or which shall have his land and life : This strife must come to such an end. For terms will never bind King Swend." He also sang these verses : — O'er herried coasts, and fields hard won,
 * ' Harald, whose red shield oft has shone