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When they had finished, Edith went up to him and was quite effusive in her expressions of gratitude. "I am sure we ought all to be very grateful to you, Mr. Birch," she said, "and I, for my part, can assure you that I am." "Grateful? Why?" demanded Halfdan, looking quite unhappy. "For singing OUR national songs, of course. Now, won't you sing one of your own, please?
Upon Ebbe replying that the future son-in-law of the king was next to his side, Halfdan asked him, in the most passionate language, what madness, or what demons, had brought him to such wantonness, as to make bold to unite his contemptible and filthy race with a splendid and illustrious line, or to dare to lay his peasant finger upon the royal family: and, not content even with such a claim, to aspire, as it seemed, to a share even in the kingdom of another.
But the conception of him that excludes him from the list of ancient kings of Denmark seems to have been shared by Snorri Sturlason; for in Snorri's Ynglingasaga, where Frothi, Halfdan, Helgi, Hrolf Kraki, and other early Danish kings are mentioned, and where one would expect something to be said about Hroar also, his name does not occur and there is no reference to him whatever.
Ingjald, whom he has in his story about Hrolf Kraki, he also retained, but in a different relationship from that in his second book. It will be observed that Saxo merely shifted the name Halfdan from father to son, and that Harald, almost a conventional name, he employed twice. Finally, he introduced a strange person, Olaf, about whom, he says, nothing, practically, was known.
Halfdan in the meanwhile was vainly struggling against his growing passion for Edith; but the more he rebelled the more hopelessly he found himself entangled in its inextricable net. The fly, as long as it keeps quiet in the spider's web, may for a moment forget its situation; but the least effort to escape is apt to frustrate itself and again reveal the imminent peril.
She had three boys, Guttorm, Halfdan, and Harold, whom she brought into the hall to introduce to their half-brother, the king. Olaf put the two older ones on his knees and made so fierce a face at them that they ran away sadly scared. Then he took up little Harold and stared at him in the same way. The brave youngster was not so easily frightened as his brothers and stared back at the king.
"On a time very long ago," began Sigurd, as he sat beside Olaf on a bench facing Queen Allogia, "there reigned in the south of Norway a young king named Halfdan the Swarthy. His realm was not large, for the country was at that time divided into many districts, each having its independent king.
"That would be a great house-keeping!" said the king; "and now, Harald, what wouldst thou have?" "Followers." "And how many of them?" "Oh, so many as would eat up all Halfdan's cows at a single meal!" Olaf laughed, and said, "Here, mother, thou art bringing up a king." In fact, Guttorm and Halfdan followed the quiet life of their father, but Harald was of far different temper.
But the king would in nowise forgive his sons for the slaying of his friend, and outlawed them. Whereon Halfdan came and fell on us in the Orkneys; and that was unlucky for him, for we beat him, and Jarl Einar avenged on him his father's death.
He also defeated Swelling, a Swedish duke, and treated him in the same manner. Frothi abducted Jorund's daughter, by whom he had a son who was called Halfdan. But taking another woman to wife, a legitimate heir was born to him, and this son was called Ingjald. Starkad, however, was so filled with remorse for having killed Ali that he did not wish to remain with Frothi.
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