Then the trumpets sounded, and both sides engaged in battle with all their strength.  The sky seemed to fall suddenly on the earth, fields and woods to sink into the ground; all things were confounded, and old Chaos come again; heaven and earth mingling in one tempestuous turmoil, and the world rushing to universal ruin.  For, when the spear-throwing began, the intolerable clash of arms filled the air with an incredible thunder.  The steam of the wounds suddenly hung a mist over the sky, the daylight was hidden under the hail of spears.  The help of the slingers was of great use in the battle.  But when the missiles had all been flung from hand or engines, they fought with swords or iron-shod maces; and it was now at close quarters that most blood was spilt.  Then the sweat streamed down their weary bodies, and the clash of the swords could be heard afar.

Starkad, who was the first to set forth the history of this war in the telling, fought foremost in the fray, and relates that he overthrew the nobles of Harald, Hun and Elli, Hort and Burgha, and cut off the right hand of Wisna.  He also relates that one Roa, with two others, Gnepie and Gardar, fell wounded by him in the field.  To these he adds the father of Skalk, whose name is not given.  He also declares that he cast Hakon, the bravest of the Danes, to the earth, but received from him such a wound in return that he had to leave the war with his lung protruding from his chest, his neck cleft to the centre, and his hand deprived of one finger; so that he long had a gaping wound, which seemed as if it would never either scar over or be curable.  The same man witnesses that the maiden Weghbiorg (Webiorg) fought against the enemy and felled Soth the champion.  While she was threatening to slay more champions, she was pierced through by an arrow from the bowstring of Thorkill, a native of Tellemark.  For the skilled archers of the Gotlanders strung their bows so hard that the shafts pierced through even the shields; nothing proved more murderous; for the arrow-points made their way through hauberk and helmet as if they were men’s defenceless bodies.

Meanwhile Ubbe the Frisian, who was the readiest of Harald’s soldiers, and of notable bodily stature, slew twenty-five picked champions, besides eleven whom he had wounded in the field.  All these were of Swedish or Gothic blood.  Then he attacked the vanguard and burst into the thickest of the enemy, driving the Swedes struggling in a panic every way with spear and sword.  It had all but come to a flight, when Hagder (Hadd), Rolder (Hroald), and Grettir attacked the champion, emulating his valour, and resolving at their own risk to retrieve the general ruin.  But, fearing to assault him at close quarters, they accomplished their end with arrows from afar; and thus Ubbe was riddled by a shower of arrows, no one daring to fight him hand to hand.  A hundred and forty-four arrows had pierced the breast of the warrior before his bodily strength failed and he bent his knee to the earth.  Then at last the Danes suffered a great defeat, owing to the Thronds and the dwellers in the province of Dala.  For the battle began afresh by reason of the vast mass of the archers, and nothing damaged our men more.