After Ragnar had thus triumphed the king scanned his dress closely, and saw that he was rough and hairy; but, above all, he laughed at the shaggy lower portion of his garb, and chiefly the uncouth aspect of his breeches; so that he gave him in jest the nickname of Lodbrog.  Also he invited him to feast with his friends, to refresh him after his labours.  Ragnar said that he would first go back to the witnesses whom he had left behind.  He set out and brought them back, splendidly attired for the coming feast.  At last, when the banquet was over, he received the prize that was appointed for the victory.  By her he begot two nobly-gifted sons, Radbard and Dunwat.  These also had brothers—­Siward, Biorn, Agnar, and Iwar.

Meanwhile, the Jutes and Skanians were kindled with an unquenchable fire of sedition; they disallowed the title of Ragnar, and gave a certain Harald the sovereign power.  Ragnar sent envoys to Norway, and besought friendly assistance against these men; and Ladgerda, whose early love still flowed deep and steadfast, hastily sailed off with her husband and her son.  She brought herself to offer a hundred and twenty ships to the man who had once put her away.  And he, thinking himself destitute of all resources, took to borrowing help from folk of every age, crowded the strong and the feeble all together, and was not ashamed to insert some old men and boys among the wedges of the strong.  So he first tried to crush the power of the Skanians in the field which in Latin is called Laneus (Woolly); here he had a hard fight with the rebels.  Here, too, Iwar, who was in his seventh year, fought splendidly, and showed the strength of a man in the body of a boy.  But Siward, while attacking the enemy face to face, fell forward upon the ground wounded.  When his men saw this, it made them look round most anxiously for means of flight; and this brought low not only Siward, but almost the whole army on the side of Ragnar.  But Ragnar by his manly deeds and exhortations comforted their amazed and sunken spirits, and, just when they were ready to be conquered, spurred them on to try and conquer.

Ladgerda, who had a matchless spirit though a delicate frame, covered by her splendid bravery the inclination of the soldiers to waver.  For she made a sally about, and flew round to the rear of the enemy, taking them unawares, and thus turned the panic of her friends into the camp of the enemy.  At last the lines of harald became slack, and harald himself was routed with a great slaughter of his men.  Ladgerda, when she had gone home after the battle, murdered her husband.... in the night with a spear-head, which she had hid in her gown.  Then she usurped the whole of his name and sovereignty; for this most presumptuous dame thought it pleasanter to rule without her husband than to share the throne with him.