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Updated: June 14, 2025
Svein, Eric, and the Swedish king, with their combined fleets, lay in wait behind some cape in a safe little bay of some island, then called Svolde, but not in our time to be found; the Baltic tumults in the fourteenth century having swallowed it, as some think, and leaving us uncertain whether it was in the neighborhood of Rugen Island or in the Sound of Elsinore.
The woman learned this song, and thereafter Grettir rode on his way; Svein came there a little after, and she was not yet gone in, and as he came he sang this "What foreteller of spear-shower E'en within this nigh-passed hour, Swift through the rough weather rode Past the gate of this abode?
Jarl Eric had vanished with all his war forces towards England, leaving only a boy, Hakon, as successor, and Svein, his own brother, a quiet man, who had always avoided war. Olaf landed in Norway without obstacle; but decided to be quiet till he had himself examined and consulted friends. His reception by his mother Aasta was of the kindest and proudest, and is lovingly described by Snorro.
At the court in the Earl's service was Biorn's brother, Hiarandi, who was exceedingly wroth when he heard of Biorn's death, and begged the Earl's assistance in the matter. Svein therefore sent for Thorfinn and Grettir, but Hiarandi would not agree to any terms proposed, and lay in wait to take Grettir's life.
The attack proved difficult for the Danes, for the stern-defenders of the Long Serpent and of the Short Serpent hooked anchors and grappling hooks to King Svein's ships, and as they could strike down upon the enemy with their weapons, for they had much larger and higher boarded ships, they cleared of men all the Danish ships which they had laid hold of. King Svein had to retreat.
But there was a man called Svein, who dwelt at Bank up from Thingness, he was a good bonder and a merry man, and often sang such songs as were gamesome to hear; he had a mare black to behold, the swiftest of all horses, and her Svein called Saddle-fair.
Day after day, for six days, flatly refused; and after nightfall of the sixth, glided out with her foster-brother into the woods, into by-paths and inconceivable wanderings; and, in effect, got home to Denmark. Brother Svein was not for the moment there; probably enough gone to England again.
"Hardly any king," says Snorro, "was ever so well obeyed, by one class out of zeal and love, by the rest out of dread." His glorious course, however, was not to last long. Svein earnestly applied himself to settle these, and have his hands free. Burislav, an aged heathen gentleman, proved reasonable and conciliatory; so, too, the King of Sweden, and Dowager Queen Sigrid, his managing mother.
Strange to think of, fierce Svein of the Double-beard, and conquest of England by him; this had at last become the one salutary result which remained for that distracted, down-trodden, now utterly chaotic and anarchic country.
She spoke of this to her husband; but her husband would take no hold, merely made her gifts, and said, "Pooh, pooh, can't we live without old Burislav and his Wendland properties?" For no King Svein in the world would Harald Gormson have given up his own or his wife's just rights!"
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