When Wermund was losing his sight by infirmity of age, the King of Saxony, thinking that Denmark lacked a leader, sent envoys ordering him to surrender to his charge the kingdom which he held beyond the due term of life; lest, if he thirsted to hold sway too long, he should strip his country of laws and defence.  For how could he be reckoned a king, whose spirit was darkened with age, and his eyes with blindness not less black and awful?  If he refused, but yet had a son who would dare to accept a challenge and fight with his son, let him agree that the victor should possess the realm.  But if he approved neither offer, let him learn that he must be dealt with by weapons and not by warnings; and in the end he must unwillingly surrender what he was too proud at first to yield uncompelled.  Wermund, shaken by deep sighs, answered that it was too insolent to sting him with these taunts upon his years; for he had passed no timorous youth, nor shrunk from battle, that age should bring him to this extreme misery.  It was equally unfitting to cast in his teeth the infirmity of his blindness:  for it was common for a loss of this kind to accompany such a time of life as his, and it seemed a calamity fitter for sympathy than for taunts.  It were juster to fix the blame on the impatience of the King of Saxony, whom it would have beseemed to wait for the old man’s death, and not demand his throne; for it was somewhat better to succeed to the dead than to rob the living.  Yet, that he might not be thought to make over the honours of his ancient freedom, like a madman, to the possession of another, he would accept the challenge with his own hand.  The envoys answered that they knew that their king would shrink from the mockery of fighting a blind man, for such an absurd mode of combat was thought more shameful than honourable.  It would surely be better to settle the affair by means of their offspring on either side.  The Danes were in consternation, and at a sudden loss for a reply:  but Uffe, who happened to be there with the rest, craved his father’s leave to answer; and suddenly the dumb as it were spake.  When Wermund asked who had thus begged leave to speak, and the attendants said that it was Uffe, he declared that it was enough that the insolent foreigner should jeer at the pangs of his misery, without those of his own household vexing him with the same wanton effrontery.  But the courtiers persistently averred that this man was Uffe; and the king said:  “He is free, whosoever he be, to say out what he thinks.”  Then said Uffe, “that it was idle for their king to covet a realm which could rely not only on the service of its own ruler, but also on the arms and wisdom of most valiant nobles.  Moreover, the king did not lack a son nor the kingdom an heir; and they were to know that he had made up his mind to fight not only the son of their king, but also, at the same time, whatsoever man the prince should elect as his comrade out of the bravest of their nation.”