They went on; and saw, not far off, a gloomy, neglected town, looking more like a cloud exhaling vapour.  Stakes interspersed among the battlements showed the severed heads of warriors and dogs of great ferocity were seen watching before the doors to guard the entrance.  Thorkill threw them a horn smeared with fat to lick, and so, at slight cost, appeased their most furious rage.  High up the gates lay open to enter, and they climbed to their level with ladders, entering with difficulty.  Inside the town was crowded with murky and misshapen phantoms, and it was hard to say whether their shrieking figures were more ghastly to the eye or to the ear; everything was foul, and the reeking mire afflicted the nostrils of the visitors with its unbearable stench.  Then they found the rocky dwelling which Geirrod was rumoured to inhabit for his palace.  They resolved to visit its narrow and horrible ledge, but stayed their steps and halted in panic at the very entrance.  Then Thorkill, seeing that they were of two minds, dispelled their hesitation to enter by manful encouragement, counselling them, to restrain themselves, and not to touch any piece of gear in the house they were about to enter, albeit it seemed delightful to have or pleasant to behold; to keep their hearts as far from all covetousness as from fear; neither to desire what was pleasant to take, nor dread what was awful to look upon, though they should find themselves amidst abundance of both these things.  If they did, their greedy hands would suddenly be bound fast, unable to tear themselves away from the thing they touched, and knotted up with it as by inextricable bonds.  Moreover, they should enter in order, four by four.

Broder and Buchi (Buk?) were the first to show courage to attempt to enter the vile palace; Thorkill with the king followed them, and the rest advanced behind these in ordered ranks.

Inside, the house was seen to be ruinous throughout, and filled with a violent and abominable reek.  And it also teemed with everything that could disgust the eye or the mind:  the door-posts were begrimed with the soot of ages, the wall was plastered with filth, the roof was made up of spear-heads, the flooring was covered with snakes and bespattered with all manner of uncleanliness.  Such an unwonted sight struck terror into the strangers, and, over all, the acrid and incessant stench assailed their afflicted nostrils.  Also bloodless phantasmal monsters huddled on the iron seats, and the places for sitting were railed off by leaden trellises; and hideous doorkeepers stood at watch on the thresholds.  Some of these, armed with clubs lashed together, yelled, while others played a gruesome game, tossing a goat’s hide from one to the other with mutual motion of goatish backs.