Thus Oller was driven out from Byzantium by Odin and retired into Sweden.  Here, while he was trying, as if in a new world, to repair the records of his glory, the Danes slew him.  The story goes that he was such a cunning wizard that he used a certain bone, which he had marked with awful spells, wherewith to cross the seas, instead of a vessel; and that by this bone he passed over the waters that barred his way as quickly as by rowing.

But Odin, now that he had regained the emblems of godhead, shone over all parts of the world with such a lustre of renown that all nations welcomed him as though he were light restored to the universe; nor was any spot to be found on the earth which did not hornage to his might.  Then finding that Boe, his son by Rhlda, was enamoured of the hardships of war, he called him, and bade him bear in mind the slaying of his brother:  saying that it would be better for him to take vengeande on the murderers of Balder than to overcome them in battle; for warfare was most fitting and wholesome when a holy occasion for waging it was furnished by a righteous opening for vengeande.

News came meantime that Gewar had been slain by the guile of his own satrap (jarl), Gunne.  Hother determined to visit his murder with the strongest and sharpest revenge.  So he surprised Gunne, cast him on a blazing pyre, and burnt him; for Gunne had himself treacherously waylaid Gewar, and burnt him alive in the night.  This was his offering of vengeance to the shade of his foster-father; and then he made his sons, Herlek and Gerit, rulers of Norway.

Then he summoned the elders to assembly, and told them that he would perish in the war wherein he was bound to meet Boe, and said that he knew this by no doubtful guesswork, but by sure prophecies of seers.  So he besought them to make his son Rorik king, so that the judgment of wicked men should not transfer the royalty to strange and unknown houses; averring that he would reap more joy from the succession of his son than bitterness from his own impending death.  This request was speedily granted.  Then he met Boe in battle and was killed; but small joy the victory gave Boe.  Indeed, he left the battle so sore stricken that he was lifted on his shield and carried home by his foot-soldiers supporting him in turn, to perish next day of the pain of his wounds.  The Ruthenian army gave his body a gorgeous funeral and buried it in a splendid howe, which it piled in his name, to save the record of so mighty a warrior from slipping out of the recollection of after ages.

So the Kurlanders and the Swedes, as though the death of Hother set them free from the burden of their subjection, resolved to attack Denmark, to which they were accustomed to do homage with a yearly tax.  By this the Slavs also were emboldened to revolt, and a number of others were turned from subjects into foes.  Rorik, in order to check this wrongdoing, summoned his country to arms, recounted the deeds of his forefathers, and