But when Harald, being now blind with age, heard the lamentable murmur of his men, he perceived that fortune had smiled on his enemies.  So, as he was riding in a chariot armed with scythes, he told Brun, who was treacherously acting as charioteer, to find out in what manner Ring had his line drawn up.  Brun’s face relaxed into something of a smile, and he answered that he was fighting with a line in the form of a wedge.  When the king heard this he began to be alarmed, and to ask in great astonishment from whom Ring could have learnt this method of disposing his line, especially as Odin was the discoverer and imparter of this teaching, and none but himself had ever learnt from him this new pattern of warfare.  At this Brun was silent, and it came into the king’s mind that here was Odin, and that the god whom he had once known so well was now disguised in a changeful shape, in order either to give help or withhold it.  Presently he began to beseech him earnestly to grant the final victory to the Danes, since he had helped them so graciously before, and to fill up his last kindness to the measure of the first; promising to dedicate to him as a gift the spirits of all who fell.  But Brun, utterly unmoved by his entreaties, suddenly jerked the king out of the chariot, battered him to the earth, plucked the club from him as he fell, whirled it upon his head, and slew him with his own weapon.  Countless corpses lay round the king’s chariot, and the horrid heap overtopped the wheels; the pile of carcases rose as high as the pole.  For about 12,000 of the nobles of Ring fell upon the field.  But on the side of Harald about 30,000 nobles fell, not to name the slaughter of the commons.

When Ring heard that Harald was dead, he gave the signal to his men to break up their line and cease fighting.  Then under cover of truce he made treaty with the enemy, telling them that it was vain to prolong the fray without their captain.  Next he told the Swedes to look everywhere among the confused piles of carcases for the body of Harald, that the corpse of the king might not wrongfully lack its due rights.  So the populace set eagerly to the task of turning over the bodies of the slain, and over this work half the day was spent.  At last the body was found with the club, and he thought that propitiation should be made to the shade of Harald.  So he harnessed the horse on which he rode to the chariot of the king, decked it honourably with a golden saddle, and hallowed it in his honour.  Then he proclaimed his vows, and added his prayer that Harald would ride on this and outstrip those who shared his death in their journey to Tartarus; and that he would pray Pluto, the lord of Orcus, to grant a calm abode there for friend and foe.  Then he raised a pyre, and bade the Danes fling on the gilded chariot of their king as fuel to the fire.  And while the flames were burning the body cast upon them, he went round the mourning nobles and earnestly charged them that they should