第93章
He appointed that the body of a centurion or governor should receive funeral on a pyre built of his own ship.He ordered that the bodies of every ten pilots should be burnt together with a single ship, but that every earl or king that was killed should be put on his own ship and burnt with it.He wished this nice attention to be paid in conducting the funerals of the slain, because he wished to prevent indiscriminate obsequies.By this time all the kings of the Russians except Olmar and Dag had fallen in battle.(b) He also ordered the Russians to conduct their warfare in imitation of the Danes, and never to marry a wife without buying her.He thought that bought marriages would have more security, believing that the troth which was sealed with a price was the safest.(d) Moreover, anyone who durst attempt the violation of a virgin was to be punished with the severance of his bodily parts, or else to requite the wrong of his intercourse with a thousand talents.(e) He also enacted that any man that applied himself to war, who aspired to the title of tried soldier, should attack a single man, should stand the attack of two, should only withdraw his foot a little to avoid three, but should not blush to flee from four.(f) He also proclaimed that a new custom concerning the pay of the soldiers should be observed by the princes under his sway.He ordered that each native soldier and housecarl should be presented in the winter season with three marks of silver, a common or hired soldier with two, a private soldier who had finished his service with only one.By this law he did injustice to valour, reckoning the rank of the soldiers and not their courage; and he was open to the charge of error in the matter, because he set familiar acquaintance above desert.
After this the king asked Erik whether the army of the Huns was as large as the forces of Olmar, and Erik answered in the following song:
"By Hercules, I came on a countless throng, a throng that neither earth nor wave could hold.Thick flared all their camp-fires, and the whole wood blazed up; the flame betokened a numberless array.The earth sank under the fraying of the horse-hoofs;creaking waggons rattled swiftly.The wheels rumbled, the driver rode upon the winds, so that the chariots sounded like thunder.
The earth hardly bore the throngs of men-at-arms, speeding on confusedly; they trod it, but it could not bear their weight.Ithought that the air crashed and the earth was shaken, so mighty was the motion of the stranger army.For I saw fifteen standards flickering at once; each of them had a hundred lesser standards, and after each of these could have been seen twenty; and the captains in their order were equal in number to the standards."Now when Frode asked wherewithal he was to resist so many, Erik instructed him that he must return home and suffer the enemy first to perish of their own hugeness.His counsel was obeyed, the advice being approved as heartily as it was uttered.But the Huns went on through pathless deserts, and, finding provisions nowhere, began to run the risk of general starvation; for it was a huge and swampy district, and nothing could be found to relieve their want.At last, when the beasts of burden had been cut down and eaten, they began to scatter, lacking carriages as much as food.Now their straying from the road was as perilous to them as their hunger.Neither horses nor asses were spared, nor did they refrain from filthy garbage.At last they did not even spare dogs: to dying men every abomination was lawful; for there is nothing too hard for the bidding of extreme need.At last when they were worn out with hunger, there came a general mortality.Bodies were carried out for burial without end, for all feared to perish, and none pitied the perishing.Fear indeed had cast out humanity.So first the divisions deserted from the king little by little; and then the army melted away by companies.He was also deserted by the prophet Ygg, a man of unknown age, which was prolonged beyond the human span; this man went as a deserter to Frode, and told him of all the preparations of the Huns.
Meanwhile Hedin, prince of a considerable tribe of the Norwegians, approached the fleet of Frode with a hundred and fifty vessels.Choosing twelve out of these, he proceeded to cruise nearer, signalling the approach of friends by a shield raised on the mast.He thus greatly augmented the forces of the king, and was received into his closest friendship.A mutual love afterwards arose between this man and Hilda, the daughter of Hogni, a chieftain of the Jutes, and a maiden of most eminent renown.For, though they had not yet seen one another, each had been kindled by the other's glory.But when they had a chance of beholding one another, neither could look away; so steadfast was the love that made their eyes linger.
Meanwhile, Frode distributed his soldiers through the towns, and carefully gathered in the materials needed for the winter supplies; but even so he could not maintain his army, with its burden of expense: and plague fell on him almost as great as the destruction that met the Huns.Therefore, to prevent the influx of foreigners, he sent a fleet to the Elbe to take care that nothing should cross; the admirals were Revil and Mevil.When the winter broke up, Hedin and Hogni resolved to make a roving-raid together; for Hogni did not know that his partner was in love with his daughter.Now Hogni was of unusual stature, and stiff in temper; while Hedin was very comely, but short.Also, when Frode saw that the cost of keeping up his army grew daily harder to bear, he sent Roller to Norway, Olmar to Sweden, King Onef and Glomer, a rover captain, to the Orkneys for supplies, each with his own forces.Thirty kings followed Frode, and were his friends or vassals.But when Hun heard that Frode had sent away his forces he mustered another and a fresh army.But Hogni betrothed his daughter to Hedin, after they had sworn to one another that whichever of them should perish by the sword should be avenged by the other.