After this he heard that Olaf, King of the Thronds, had to fight with the maidens Stikla and Rusila for the kingdom.  Much angered at this arrogance on the part of women, he went to Olaf unobserved, put on dress which concealed the length of his teeth, and attacked the maidens.  He overthrew them both, leaving to two harbours a name akin to theirs.  It was then that he gave a notable exhibition of valour; for defended only by a shirt under his shoulders, he fronted the spears with unarmed breast.

When Olaf offered Harald the prize of victory, he rejected the gift, thus leaving it a question whether he had shown a greater example of bravery or self-control.  Then he attacked a champion of the Frisian nation, named Ubbe, who was ravaging the borders of Jutland and destroying numbers of the common people; and when Harald could not subdue him to his arms, he charged his soldiers to grip him with their hands, throw him on the ground, and to bind him while thus overpowered.  Thus he only overcame the man and mastered him by a shameful kind of attack, though a little before he thought he would inflict a heavy defeat on him.  But Harald gave him his sister in marriage, and thus gained him for his soldier.

Harald made tributaries of the nations that lay along the Rhine, levying troops from the bravest of that race.  With these forces he conquered Sclavonia in war, and caused its generals, Duk and Dal, because of their bravery, to be captured, and not killed.  These men he took to serve with him, and, after overcoming Aquitania, soon went to Britain, where he overthrew the King of the Humbrians, and enrolled the smartest of the warriors he had conquered, the chief of whom was esteemed to be Orm, surnamed the Briton.  The fame of these deeds brought champions from divers parts of the world, whom he formed into a band of mercenaries.  Strengthened by their numbers, he kept down insurrections in all kingdoms by the terror of his name, so that he took out of their rulers all courage to fight with one another.  Moreover, no man durst assume any sovereignty on the sea without his consent; for of old the state of the Danes had the joint lordship of land and sea.

Meantime Ingild died in Sweden, leaving only a very little son, Ring, whom he had by the sister of Harald.  Harald gave the boy guardians, and put him over his father’s kingdom.  Thus, when he had overcome princes and provinces, he passed fifty years in peace.  To save the minds of his soldiers from being melted into sloth by this inaction, he decreed that they should assiduously learn from the champions the way of parrying and dealing blows.  Some of these were skilled in a remarkable manner of fighting, and used to smite the eyebrow on the enemy’s forehead with an infallible stroke; but if any man, on receiving the blow, blinked for fear, twitching his eyebrow, he was at once expelled the court and dismissed the service.