to beguile him; the gaping wolf; the finding of the rudder; the passing of the sand; the entering of the wood; the putting of the straw through the gadfly; the warning of the youth by the tokens; and the privy dealings with the maiden after the escort was eluded.  And likewise could be seen the picture of the palace; the queen there with her son; the slaying of the eavesdropper; and how, after being killed, he was boiled down, and so dropped into the sewer, and so thrown out to the swine; how his limbs were strewn in the mud, and so left for the beasts to finish.  Also it could be seen how Amleth surprised the secret of his sleeping attendants, how he erased the letters, and put new characters in their places; how he disdained the banquet and scorned the drink; how he condemned time face of the king and taxed the Queen with faulty behaviour.  There was also represented the hanging of the envoys, and the young man’s wedding; then the voyage back to Denmark; the festive celebration of the funeral rites; Amleth, in answer to questions, pointing to the sticks in place of his attendants, acting as cupbearer, and purposely drawing his sword and pricking his fingers; the sword riveted through, the swelling cheers of the banquet, the dance growing fast and furious; the hangings flung upon the sleepers, then fastened with the interlacing crooks, and wrapped tightly round them as they slumbered; the brand set to the mansion, the burning of the guests, the royal palace consumed with fire and tottering down; the visit to the sleeping-room of Feng, the theft of his sword, the useless one set in its place; and the king slain with his own sword’s point by his stepson’s hand.  All this was there, painted upon Amleth’s battle-shield by a careful craftsman in the choicest of handiwork; he copied truth in his figures, and embodied real deeds in his outlines.  Moreover, Amleth’s followers, to increase the splendour of their presence, wore shields which were gilt over.

The King of Britain received them very graciously, and treated them with costly and royal pomp.  During the feast he asked anxiously whether Feng was alive and prosperous.  His son-in-law told him that the man of whose welfare he was vainly inquiring had perished by the sword.  With a flood of questions he tried to find out who had slain Feng, and learnt that the messenger of his death was likewise its author.  And when the king heard this, he was secretly aghast, because he found that an old promise to avenge Feng now devolved upon himself.  For Feng and he had determined of old, by a mutual compact, that one of them should act as avenger of the other.  Thus the king was drawn one way by his love for his daughter and his affection for his son-in-law; another way by his regard for his friend, and moreover by his strict oath and the sanctity of their mutual declarations, which it was impious to violate.  At last he slighted the ties of kinship, and sworn faith prevailed.  His heart turned to vengeance, and he put the sanctity