Germ had now reached the extremity of his days, having been blind for many years, and had prolonged his old age to the utmost bounds of the human lot, being more anxious for the life and prosperity of his sons than for the few days he had to breathe.  But so great was his love for his elder son that he swore that he would slay with his own hand whosoever first brought him news of his death.  As it chanced, Thyra heard sure tidings that this son had perished.  But when no man durst openly hint this to Germ, she fell back on her cunning to defend her, and revealed by her deeds the mischance which she durst not speak plainly out.  For she took the royal robes off her husband and dressed him in filthy garments, bringing him other signs of grief also, to explain the cause of her mourning; for the ancients were wont to use such things in the performance of obsequies, bearing witness by their garb to the bitterness of their sorrow.  Then said Germ:  “Dost thou declare to me the death of Kanute?” (2) And Thyra said:  “That is proclaimed by thy presage, not by mine.”  By this answer she made out her lord a dead man and herself a widow, and had to lament her husband as soon as her son.  Thus, while she announced the fate of her son to her husband, she united them in death, and followed the obsequies of both with equal mourning; shedding the tears of a wife upon the one and of a mother upon the other; though at that moment she ought to have been cheered with comfort rather than crushed with disasters.

Endnotes:  (1) Utgard.  Saxo, rationalising as usual, turns the mythical home of the giants into some terrestrial place in his vaguely-defined Eastern Europe. (2) Kanute.  Here the vernacular is far finer.  The old king notices “Denmark is drooping, dead must my son be!”, puts on the signs of mourning, and dies.