Meantime Hother (1) learned that Denmark lacked leaders, and that Hiartuar had swiftly expiated the death of Rolf; and he used to say that chance had thrown into his hands that to which he could scarce have aspired.  For first, Rolf, whom he ought to have killed, since he remembered that Rolf’s father had slain his own, had been punished by the help of another; and also, by the unexpected bounty of events, a chance had been opened to him of winning Denmark.  In truth, if the pedigree of his forefathers were rightly traced, that realm was his by ancestral right!  Thereupon he took possession, with a very great fleet, of Isefjord, a haven of Zealand, so as to make use of his impending fortune.  There the people of the Danes met him and appointed him king; and a little after, on hearing of the death of his brother Athisl, whom he had bidden rule the Swedes, he joined the Swedish empire to that of Denmark.  But Athisl was cut off by an ignominious death.  For whilst, in great jubilation of spirit, he was honouring the funeral rites of Rolf with a feast, he drank too greedily, and paid for his filthy intemperance by his sudden end.  And so, while he was celebrating the death of another with immoderate joviality, he forced on his own apace.

While Hother was in Sweden, Balder also came to Zealand with a fleet; and since he was thought to be rich in arms and of singular majesty, the Danes accorded him with the readiest of voices whatever he asked concerning the supreme power.  With such wavering judgment was the opinion of our forefathers divided.  Hother returned from Sweden and attacked him.  They both coveted sway, and the keenest contest for the sovereignty began between them; but it was cut short by the flight of Hother.  He retired to Jutland, and caused to be named after him the village in which he was wont to stay.  Here he passed the winter season, and then went back to Sweden alone and unattended.  There he summoned the grandees, and told them that he was weary of the light of life because of the misfortunes wherewith Balder had twice victoriously stricken him.  Then he took farewell of all, and went by a circuitous path to a place that was hard of access, traversing forests uncivilised.  For it oft happens that those upon whom has come some inconsolable trouble of spirit seek, as though it were a medicine to drive away their sadness, far and sequestered retreats, and cannot bear the greatness of their grief amid the fellowship of men; so dear, for the most part, is solitude to sickness.  For filthiness and grime are chiefly pleasing to those who have been stricken with ailments of the soul.  Now he had been wont to give out from the top of a hill decrees to the people when they came to consult him; and hence when they came they upbraided the sloth of the king for hiding himself, and his absence was railed at by all with the bitterest complaints.