The king desired to learn everything from Thorkill’s own lips; and, thinking it hard to escape destiny, bade him relate what had happened in due order.  He listened eagerly to his recital of everything, till at last, when his own god was named, he could not endure him to be unfavourably judged.  For he could not bear to hear Utgarda-Loki reproached with filthiness, and so resented his shameful misfortunes, that his very life could not brook such words, and he yielded it up in the midst of Thorkill’s narrative.  Thus, whilst he was so zealous in the worship of a false god, he came to find where the true prison of sorrows really was.  Moreover, the reek of the hair, which Thorkill plucked from the locks of the giant to testify to the greatness of his own deeds, was exhaled upon the bystanders, so that many perished of it.

After the death of Gorm, Gotrik his son came to the throne.  He was notable not only for prowess but for generosity, and none can say whether his courage or his compassion was the greater.  He so chastened his harshness with mercy, that he seemed to counterweigh the one with the other.  At this time Gaut, the King of Norway, was visited by Ber (Biorn?) and Ref, men of Thule.  Gaut treated Ref with attention and friendship, and presented him with a heavy bracelet.

One of the courtiers, when he saw this, praised the greatness of the gift over-zealously, and declared that no one was equal to King Gaut in kindliness.  But Ref, though he owed thanks for the benefit, could not approve the inflated words of this extravagant praiser, and said that Gotrik was more generous than Gaut.  Wishing to crush the empty boast of the flatterer, he chose rather to bear witness to the generosity of the absent than tickle with lies the vanity of his benefactor who was present.  For another thing, he thought it somewhat more desirable to be charged with ingratitude than to support with his assent such idle and boastful praise, and also to move the king by the solemn truth than to beguile him with lying flatteries.  But Ulf persisted not only in stubbornly repeating his praises of the king, but in bringing them to the proof; and proposed their gainsayer a wager.

With his consent Ref went to Denmark, and found Gotrik seated in state, and dealing out the pay to his soldiers.  When the king asked him who he was, he said that his name was “Fox-cub” The answer filled some with mirth and some with marvel, and Gotrik said, “Yea, and it is fitting that a fox should catch his prey in his mouth.”  And thereupon he drew a bracelet from his arm, called the man to him, and put it between his lips.  Straightway Ref put it upon his arm, which he displayed to them all adorned with gold, but the other arm he kept hidden as lacking ornament; for which shrewdness he received a gift equal to the first from that hand of matchless generosity.  At this he was overjoyed, not so much because the reward was great, as because he had won his contention.  And when the king learnt from him about the wager he had laid, he rejoiced that he had been lavish to him more by accident than of set purpose, and declared that he got more pleasure from the giving than the receiver from the gift.  So Ref returned to Norway and slew his opponent, who refused to pay the wager.  Then he took the daughter of Gaut captive, and brought her to Gotrik for his own.