Hadding, on returning from the Swedish war, perceived that his treasury, wherein he was wont to store the wealth he had gotten by the spoils of war, had been forced and robbed, and straightway hanged its keeper Glumer, proclaiming by a crafty device, that, if any of the culprits brought about the recovery of the stolen goods, he should have the same post of honour as Glumer had filled.Upon this promise, one of the guilty men became more zealous to reap the bounty than to hide his crime, and had the money brought back to the king.His confederates fancied he had been received into the king's closest friendship, and believed that the honours paid him were as real as they were lavish; and therefore they also, hoping to be as well rewarded, brought back their moneys and avowed their guilt.Their confession was received at first with promotion and favours, and soon visited with punishment, thus bequeathing a signal lesson against being too confiding.I should judge that men, whose foolish blabbing brought them to destruction, when wholesome silence could have ensured their safety, well deserved to atone upon the gallows for their breach of reticence.
After this Hadding passed the whole winter season in the utmost preparation for the renewal of the war.When the frosts had been melted by the springtime sun, he went back to Sweden and there spent five years in warfare.By dint of this prolonged expedition, his soldiers, having consumed all their provision, were reduced almost to the extremity of emaciation, and began to assuage their hunger with mushrooms from the wood.At last, under stress of extreme necessity, they devoured their horses, and finally satisfied themselves with the carcases of dogs.
Worse still, they did not scruple to feed upon human limbs.So, when the Danes were brought unto the most desperate straits, there sounded in the camp, in the first sleep of the night, and no man uttering it, the following song:
"With foul augury have ye left the abode of your country, thinking to harry these fields in War.What idle notion mocks your minds? What blind self-confidence has seized your senses, that ye think this soil can thus be won.The might of Sweden cannot yield or quail before the War of the stranger; but the whole of your column shall melt away when it begins to assault our people in War.For when flight has broken up the furious onset, and the straggling part of the fighters wavers, then to those who prevail in the War is given free scope to slay those who turn their backs, and they have earned power to smite the harder when fate drives the renewer of the war headlong.Nor let him whom cowardice deters aim the spears."This prophecy was accomplished on the morrow's dawn by a great slaughter of the Danes.On the next night the warriors of Sweden heard an utterance like this, none knowing who spake it:
"Why doth Uffe thus defy me with grievous rebellion? He shall pay the utmost penalty.For he shall he buried and transpierced under showers of lances, and shall fall lifeless in atonement for his insolent attempt.Nor shall the guilt of his wanton rancour be unpunished; and, as I forebode, as soon as he joins battle and fights, the points shall fasten in his limbs and strike his body everywhere, and his raw gaping wounds no bandage shall bind up;nor shall any remedy heal over thy wide gashes."On that same night the armies fought; when two hairless old men, of appearance fouler than human, and displaying their horrid baldness in the twinkling starlight, divided their monstrous efforts with opposing ardour, one of them being zealous on the Danish side, and the other as fervent for the Swedes.Hadding was conquered and fled to Helsingland, where, while washing in the cold sea-water his body which was scorched with heat, he attacked and cut down with many blows a beast of unknown kind, and having killed it had it carried into camp.As he was exulting in this deed a woman met him and addressed him in these words:
"Whether thou tread the fields afoot, or spread canvas overseas, thou shalt suffer the hate of the gods, and through all the world shalt behold the elements oppose thy purposes.Afield thou shalt fall, on sea thou shalt be tossed, an eternal tempest shall attend the steps of thy wandering, nor shall frost-bind ever quit thy sails; nor shall thy roof-tree roof thee, but if thou seekest it, it shall fall smitten by the hurricane; thy herd shall perish of bitter chill.All things shall be tainted, and shall lament that thy lot is there.Thou shalt be shunned like a pestilent tetter, nor shall any plague be fouler than thou.Such chastisement doth the power of heaven mete out to thee, for truly thy sacrilegious hands have slain one of the dweller's above, disguised in a shape that was not his: thus here art thou, the slayer of a benignant god! But when the sea receives thee, the wrath of the prison of Eolus shall be loosed upon thy head.The West and the furious North, the South wind shall beat thee down, shall league and send forth their blasts in rivalry; until with better prayers thou hast melted the sternness of heaven, and hast lifted with appeasement the punishment thou hast earned."So, when Hadding went back, he suffered all things after this one fashion, and his coming brought disquiet upon all peaceful places.For when he was at sea a mighty storm arose and destroyed his fleet in a great tempest: and when, a shipwrecked man, he sought entertainment, he found a sudden downfall of that house.Nor was there any cure for his trouble, ere he atoned by sacrifice for his crime, and was able to return into favour with heaven.For, in order to appease the deities, he sacrificed dusky victims to the god Frey.This manner of propitiation by sacrifice he repeated as an annual feast, and left posterity to follow.This rite the Swedes call Froblod (the sacrifice or feast of Frey).
