o-one could distinguish which was the better of the
two. After that they swore foster-brotherhood to one another, and
bound themselves to share everything equally.

Hethin was young and unmarried, but Hoegni was somewhat older. He had
married Hervoer, the daughter of Hjoervarth, the son of Heithrek Ulfham.
Hoegni had a daughter who was called Hild, and who excelled all other
women in beauty and understanding. He loved his daughter exceedingly.
He had no other children.

VII. It is said that a little later Hoegni went on a raiding expedition
while Hethin stayed behind to look after his kingdom. It chanced one
day that Hethin went into a forest to pass the time. The weather
was mild. He again wandered away from his men. He came upon a forest
glade, and there he saw sitting on a throne the same woman whom he
had seen before in Serkland--only now he thought her even fairer than
before. She was again the first to speak and chattered to him gaily.
She was holding a horn with a lid to it. The King fell in love with
her. She offered him a drink and he felt thirsty, as he had grown
warm; so he took the horn and drank; and when he had drunk, a very
wonderful change came over him, for he remembered nothing that had
happened to him previously. He then sat down and talked to her.

She asked him if what she had said to him before of the skill and
courage of Hoegni had proved true and Hethin replied that it was true
enough--"for he did not come short of me in any feat that we tried,
and so we declared ourselves a match."

"Yet you two are not equal," said she.

"And why not?" asked Hethin.

"For this reason," replied she: "Hoegni has married a wife of high
birth, whereas you have no wife."

He replied: "Hoegni will marry me to Hild his daughter as soon as I
like to ask him, and then I shall be as well married as he."

"Your honour will be impaired," said she, "if you ask Hoegni for a
marriage alliance. If, as you profess, you lack neither courage nor
valour, you would do better to carry off Hild by force, and put the
Queen to death by taking her and laying her down in front of the prow
of your warship, and letting it cut her in two when it is launched."

The wickedness and forgetfulness contained in the ale which Hethin had
drunk had so got the better of him that there seemed to him to be no
alternative, and he had not the slightest recollection that he and
Hoegni were 'foster-brothers.'

Presently they parted, and Hethin