The Danish History [178]
with his son Grim, was haunting as a robber the forest of Etha-scog, which was thick with underbrush and full of gloomy glens. The offence moved his anger; then he asked his father for a horse, a dog, and such armour as could be got, and cursed his youth, which was suffering the right season for valour to slip sluggishly away. He got what he asked, and explored the aforesaid wood very narrowly. He saw the footsteps of a man printed deep on the snow; for the rime was blemished by the steps, and betrayed the robber's progress. Thus guided, he went over a hill, and came on a very great river. This effaced the human tracks he had seen before, and he determined that he must cross. But the mere mass of water, whose waves ran down in a headlong torrent, seemed to forbid all crossing; for it was full of hidden reefs, and the whole length of its channel was turbid with a kind of whirl of foam. Yet all fear of danger was banished from Ole's mind by his impatience to make haste. So valour conquered fear, and rashness scorned peril; thinking nothing hard to do if it were only to his mind, he crossed the hissing eddies on horseback. When he had passed these, he came upon defiles surrounded on all sides with swamps, the interior of which was barred from easy approach by the pinnacle of a bank in front. He took his horse over this, and saw an enclosure with a number of stalls. Out of this he turned many horses, and was minded to put in his own, when a certain Tok, a servant of Gunn, angry that a stranger should wax so insolent, attacked him fiercely; but Ole foiled his assailant by simply opposing his shield. Thinking it a shame to slay the fellow with the sword, he seized him, shattered him limb by limb, and flung him across into the house whence he had issued in his haste. This insult quickly aroused Gunn and Grim: they ran out by different side- doors, and charged Ole both at once, despising his age and strength. He wounded them fatally; and, when their bodily powers were quite spent, Grim, who could scarce muster a final gasp, and whose force was almost utterly gone, with his last pants composed this song:
"Though we be weak in frame, and the loss of blood has drained our strength; since the life-breath, now drawn out by my wound, scarce quivers softly in my pierced breast:
"I counsel that we should make the battle of our last hour glorious with dauntless deeds, that none may say that a combat has anywhere been bravelier waged or harder fought;
"And that our wild strife while we bore arms may, when our weary flesh has found rest in the tomb, win us the wage of immortal fame.
"Let our first stroke crush the shoulder-blades of the foe, let our steel cut off both his hands; so that, when Stygian Pluto has taken us, a like doom may fall on Ole also, and a common death tremble over three, and one urn cover the ashes of three."
Here Grim ended. But his father, rivalling his indomitable spirit, and wishing to give some exhortation in answer to his son's valiant speech, thus began:
"What though our veins be wholly bloodless, and in our frail body the life be brief, yet our last fight be so strong and strenuous that it suffer not the praise of us to be brief also.
"Therefore aim the javelin first at the shoulders and arms of the foe, so that the work of his hands may be weakened; and thus when we are gone three shall receive a common sepulchre, and one urn alike for three shall cover our united dust."
When he had said this, both of them, resting on their knees (for the approach of death had drained their strength), made a desperate effort to fight Ole hand to hand, in order that, before they perished, they might slay their enemy also; counting death as nothing if only they might envelope their slayer in a common fall. Ole slew one of them with his sword, the other with his hound. But even he gained no bloodless victory; for though he had been hitherto unscathed, now at last he received a wound in front. His dog diligently licked him over, and he regained his bodily strength: and soon, to publish sure
"Though we be weak in frame, and the loss of blood has drained our strength; since the life-breath, now drawn out by my wound, scarce quivers softly in my pierced breast:
"I counsel that we should make the battle of our last hour glorious with dauntless deeds, that none may say that a combat has anywhere been bravelier waged or harder fought;
"And that our wild strife while we bore arms may, when our weary flesh has found rest in the tomb, win us the wage of immortal fame.
"Let our first stroke crush the shoulder-blades of the foe, let our steel cut off both his hands; so that, when Stygian Pluto has taken us, a like doom may fall on Ole also, and a common death tremble over three, and one urn cover the ashes of three."
Here Grim ended. But his father, rivalling his indomitable spirit, and wishing to give some exhortation in answer to his son's valiant speech, thus began:
"What though our veins be wholly bloodless, and in our frail body the life be brief, yet our last fight be so strong and strenuous that it suffer not the praise of us to be brief also.
"Therefore aim the javelin first at the shoulders and arms of the foe, so that the work of his hands may be weakened; and thus when we are gone three shall receive a common sepulchre, and one urn alike for three shall cover our united dust."
When he had said this, both of them, resting on their knees (for the approach of death had drained their strength), made a desperate effort to fight Ole hand to hand, in order that, before they perished, they might slay their enemy also; counting death as nothing if only they might envelope their slayer in a common fall. Ole slew one of them with his sword, the other with his hound. But even he gained no bloodless victory; for though he had been hitherto unscathed, now at last he received a wound in front. His dog diligently licked him over, and he regained his bodily strength: and soon, to publish sure