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Soon afterwards he was taken sick with a violent fever and gradually sank, so that it became apparent that he would die. On his death-bed he decided that Sweyn, who had fought so hard to win from him the crown of Denmark, had a better right to that kingdom than Harold, and men were sent to inform him of his succession to the Danish throne.
Although the conqueror was their enemy they appreciated so highly the virtues of coolness and courage that their applause was no less hearty than if the victor had been a countryman. Sweyn had fallen almost the instant the blow had been struck. The ring was at once broken up, and his friends ran to him.
"You will have no easy victory, I can tell you," Siegbert said, "for none among our young Danes bears a higher reputation." "But after the combat is over how shall I stand?" Edmund asked; "for if I defeat or slay Sweyn I shall still be his father's slave." "That will you not," Siegbert replied.
Edmund had already ascertained that Sweyn had left a fortnight before with his following, and had marched towards Champagne. There probably he had halted his main body, returning only with a party of horsemen to carry off Freda. "I would I could go with you," Siegbert groaned as Edmund said adieu to him.
"And," the Saga adds, "it is the common saying of Sweyn that he was the most masterful man in the western lands, both of yore and now-a-days, among those men who had no higher rank than himself." Sweyn was, in fact the greatest man of his time. For he robbed whom he pleased, made and undid jarls and earls as he chose, and was the friend or tool of more than one Scottish king.
Ragnvald, who was much in Caithness and Sutherland, and seems to have held and acquired considerable estates there, begins what is practically a new Saga, which may be styled "The Story of Ragnvald, and of Sweyn" the great Viking. Of these two we have perhaps the finest and most vividly painted pictures of the Orkneyinga Saga, full of dramatic touches, full, too, of interesting historical detail.
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.
And there they sat in Abbot Thurstan's hall, and waited for Sweyn and the Danes. But the worst Job's messenger who, during that evil winter and spring, came into the fen, was Bishop Egelwin of Durham. He it was, most probably, who brought the news of Yorkshire laid waste with fire and sword.
Similar efforts were made about the same time by the Danes for the lasting conquest of England, which succeeded, Sweyn having been proclaimed king in 1013, and Canute the Great becoming its undisputed ruler in 1017. It is well known how the attempt failed in Erin, an army of twenty-one thousand freebooters being completely defeated near Dublin by Brian and his sons.
How Tosti had been to Sweyn, and bid him come back and win the country again, as Canute his uncle had done; and how the cautious Dane had answered that he was a much smaller man than Canute, and had enough to hold his own against the Norsemen, and could not afford to throw for such high stakes as his mighty uncle.
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