The Jutlanders, a presumptuous race, thinking that because of his recent marriage he would never return, took the Skanians into alliance, and tried to attack the Zealanders, who preserved the most zealous and affectionate loyalty towards Ragnar.  He, when he heard of it, equipped thirty ships, and, the winds favouring his voyage, crushed the Skanians, who ventured to fight, near the stead of Whiteby, and when the winter was over he fought successfully with the Jutlanders who dwelt near the Liim-fjord in that region.  A third and a fourth time he conquered the Skanians and the Hallanders triumphantly.

Afterwards, changing his love, and desiring Thora, the daughter of the King Herodd, to wife, Ragnar divorced himself from Ladgerda; for he thought ill of her trustworthiness, remembering that she had long ago set the most savage beasts to destroy him.  Meantime Herodd, the King of the Swedes, happening to go and hunt in the woods, brought home some snakes, found by his escort, for his daughter to rear.  She speedily obeyed the instructions of her father, and endured to rear a race of adders with her maiden hands.  Moreover, she took care that they should daily have a whole ox-carcase to gorge upon, not knowing that she was privately feeding and keeping up a public nuisance.  The vipers grew up, and scorched the country-side with their pestilential breath.  Whereupon the king, repenting of his sluggishness, proclaimed that whosoever removed the pest should have his daughter.

Many warriors were thereto attracted by courage as much as by desire; but all idly and perilously wasted their pains.  Ragnar, learning from men who travelled to and fro how the matter stood, asked his nurse for a woolen mantle, and for some thigh-pieces that were very hairy, with which he could repel the snake-bites.  He thought that he ought to use a dress stuffed with hair to protect himself, and also took one that was not unwieldy, that he might move nimbly.  And when he had landed in Sweden, he deliberately plunged his body in water, while there was a frost falling, and, wetting his dress, to make it the less penetrable, he let the cold freeze it.  Thus attired, he took leave of his companions, exhorted them to remain loyal to Fridleif, and went on to the palace alone.  When he saw it, he tied his sword to his side, and lashed a spear to his right hand with a thong.  As he went on, an enormous snake glided up and met him.  Another, equally huge, crawled up, following in the trail of the first.  They strove now to buffet the young man with the coils of their tails, and now to spit and belch their venom stubbornly upon him.  Meantime the courtiers, betaking themselves to safer hiding, watched the struggle from afar like affrighted little girls.  The king was stricken with equal fear, and fled, with a few followers, to a narrow shelter.  But Ragnar, trusting in the hardness of his frozen dress, foiled the poisonous assaults not only with his arms, but with his attire, and, singlehanded, in unweariable combat, stood up against the two gaping creatures, who stubbornly poured forth their venom upon him.  For their teeth he repelled with his shield, their poison with his dress.  At last he cast his spear, and drove it against the bodies of the brutes, who were attacking him hard.  He pierced both their hearts, and his battle ended in victory.