Still Hugleik had the friendship of Geigad and Swipdag, nobles of tried valour, who, by the lustre of their warlike deeds, shone out among their unmanly companions like jewels embedded in ordure; these alone were found to defend the riches of the king.  When a battle began between Hugleik and Hakon, the hordes of mimes, whose light-mindedness unsteadied their bodies, broke their ranks and scurried off in panic; and this shameful flight was their sole requital for all their king’s benefits.  Then Geigad and Swipdag faced all those thousands of the enemy single-handed, and fought with such incredible courage, that they seemed to do the part not merely of two warriors, but of a whole army.  Geigad, moreover, dealt Hakon, who pressed him hard, such a wound in the breast that he exposed the upper part of his liver.  It was here that Starkad, while he was attacking Geigad with his sword, received a very sore wound on the head; wherefore he afterwards related in a certain song that a ghastlier wound had never befallen him at any time; for, though the divisions of his gashed head were bound up by the surrounding outer skin, yet the livid unseen wound concealed a foul gangrene below.

Starkad conquered, killed Hugleik and routed the Irish; and had the actors beaten whom chance made prisoner; thinking it better to order a pack of buffoons to be ludicrously punished by the loss of their skins than to command a more deadly punishment and take their lives.  Thus he visited with a disgraceful chastisement the baseborn throng of professional jugglers, and was content to punish them with the disgusting flouts of the lash.  Then the Danes ordered that the wealth of the king should be brought out of the treasury in the city of Dublin and publicly pillaged.  For so vast a treasure had been found that none took much pains to divide it strictly.

After this, Starkad was commissioned, together with Win, the chief of the Sclavs, to check the revolt of the East.  They, having fought against the armies of the Kurlanders, the Sembs, the Sangals, and, finally, all the Easterlings, won splendid victories everywhere.

A champion of great repute, named Wisin, settled upon a rock in Russia named Ana-fial, and harried both neighbouring and distant provinces with all kinds of outrage.  This man used to blunt the edge of every weapon by merely looking at it.  He was made so bold in consequence, by having lost all fear of wounds, that he used to carry off the wives of distinguished men and drag them to outrage before the eyes of their husbands.  Starkad was roused by the tale of this villainy, and went to Russia to destroy the criminal; thinking nothing too hard to overcome, he challenged Wisin, attacked him, made even his tricks useless to him, and slew him.  For Starkad covered his blade with a very fine skin, that it might not met the eye of the sorcerer; and neither the power of his sleights nor his great strength were any help to Wisin, for