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In the same way, soon after the use of letters was known in the North of Europe, there was drawn up by Saxo Grammaticus the life of the celebrated Ragnar Lodbrok. Either from accident or design, this great warrior of Scandinavia, who had taught England to tremble, had received the same name as another Ragnar, who was prince of Jutland about a hundred years earlier.

This explains the loss, which otherwise would be very strange, of such well known names as Hroar, Helgi, and Hrolf Kraki. The only incentive any one could have to change the names would be just that which Saxo had, namely that he had used them before in another connection.

His brief draft of annals is written in rough mediocre Latin. It names but a few of the kings recorded by Saxo, and tells little that Saxo does not. Yet there is a certain link between the two writers. Sweyn speaks of Saxo with respect; he not obscurely leaves him the task of filling up his omissions.

The notice, however, helps us approximately towards Saxo's birth-year. His grandfather, if he fought for Waldemar, who began to reign in 1157, can hardly have been born before 1100, nor can Saxo himself have been born before 1145 or 1150.

Ludvig Holberg is also buried in this cloister church, as well as three Danish Kings. Ingemann the poet spent most of his time at this charming town, which stands on the lake of the Sorö . In the luxuriant beech-woods which surround the lake, Saxo Grammaticus, the first historian of Denmark, was wont to wander.

The principal results attained in the foregoing consideration of the dragon story in the Hrólfssaga and the corresponding stories in the Bjarkarímur may be stated briefly as follows: The story in Saxo is the earliest story we have of the slaying of an animal by Bjarki in order that Hjalti may drink its blood and acquire strength and courage.

But in most instances the father or brother betrothed the girl, and she consented to their choice. Unwelcome suitors perish. The prohibited degrees were, of course, different from those established by the mediaeval church, and brother weds brother's widow in good archaic fashion. Foster-sister and foster-brother may marry, as Saxo notices carefully. The Wolsung incest is not noticed by Saxo.

There are the tame snakes, the baffled suitors' heads staked to terrify other suitors, and the hero using red-hot iron and spear to slay the two reptiles. This seems an obvious accretion in the original Hamlet story, and probably owing not to Saxo, but to his authority. The "Crafty Soaker" is another excellent comic folk-tale. The Soaker baffled the king by sipping, never taking a full draught.

"Lawgivers". The realm of Custom had already long been curtailed by the conquests of Law when Saxo wrote, and some epochs of the invasion were well remembered, such as Canute's laws.

It appears in Saxo Grammaticus, who flourished in the twelfth century, where it is told of Palnatoki, King Harold Gormson's thane and assassin. In the thirteenth century the Wilkina Saga relates it of Egill, Voelundr's our Wayland Smith's younger brother.