And that no one may wonder that this sex laboured at warfare, I will make a brief digression, in order to give a short account of the estate and character of such women.  There were once women among the Danes who dressed themselves to look like men, and devoted almost every instant of their lives to the pursuit of war, that they might not suffer their valour to be unstrung or dulled by the infection of luxury.  For they abhorred all dainty living, and used to harden their minds and bodies with toil and endurance.  They put away all the softness and lightmindedness of women, and inured their womanish spirit to masculine ruthlessness.  They sought, moreover, so zealously to be skilled in warfare, that they might have been thought to have unsexed themselves.  Those especially, who had either force of character or tall and comely persons, used to enter on this kind of life.  These women, therefore (just as if they had forgotten their natural estate, and preferred sternness to soft words), offered war rather than kisses, and would rather taste blood than busses, and went about the business of arms more than that of amours.  They devoted those hands to the lance which they should rather have applied to the loom.  They assailed men with their spears whom they could have melted with their looks, they thought of death and not of dalliance.  Now I will cease to wander, and will go back to my theme.

In the early spring, Alf and Alger, who had gone back to sea-roving, were exploring the sea in various directions, when they lighted with a hundred ships upon Helwin, Hagbard, and Hamund, sons of the kinglet Hamund.  These they attacked and only the twilight stayed their blood-wearied hands; and in the night the soldiers were ordered to keep truce.  On the morrow this was ratified for good by a mutual oath; for such loss had been suffered on both sides in the battle of the day before that they had no force left to fight again.  Thus, exhausted bye quality of valour, they were driven perforce to make peace.  About the same time Hildigisl, a Teuton Of noble birth, relying on his looks and his rank, sued for Signe, the daughter of Sigar.  But she scorned him, chiefly for his insignificance, inasmuch as he was not brave, but wished to adorn his fortunes with the courage of other people.  But this woman was inclined to love Hakon, chiefly for the high renown of his great deeds.  For she thought more of the brave than the feeble; she admired notable deeds more than looks, knowing that every allurement of beauty is mere dross when reckoned against simple valour, and cannot weigh equal with it in the balance.  For there are maids that are more charmed by the fame than by the face of their lovers; who go not by the looks, but by the mind, and whom naught but regard for a man’s spirit can kindle to pledge their own troth.  Now Hagbard, going to Denmark with the sons of Sigar, gained speech of their sister without their knowledge, and in the end induced her to pledge