ter to show his gratefulness for
his nursing. A little while after he gave her in marriage to a certain
Bess, since he had ofttimes used his strenuous service. In this partner
of his warlike deeds he put his trust; and he has left it a question
whether he has won more renown by Bess's valour or his own.

Gram, chancing to hear that Groa, daughter of Sigtryg, King of the
Swedes, was plighted to a certain giant, and holding accursed an union
so unworthy of the blood royal, entered on a Swedish war; being
destined to emulate the prowess of Hercules in resisting the attempts of
monsters. He went into Gothland, and, in order to frighten people out of
his path, strode on clad in goats' skins, swathed in the motley hides of
beasts, and grasping in his right hand a dreadful weapon, thus feigning
the attire of a giant; when he met Groa herself riding with a very
small escort of women on foot, and making her way, as it chanced, to the
forest-pools to bathe, she thought it was her betrothed who had hastened
to meet her, and was scared with feminine alarm at so strange a garb:
so, flinging up the reins, and shaking terribly all over, she began in
the song of her country, thus:

"I see that a giant, hated of the king, has come, and darkens the
highways with his stride. Or my eyes play me false; for it has oft
befallen bold warriors to skulk behind the skin of a beast."

Then began Bess: "Maiden, seated on the shoulders of the steed, tell me,
pouring forth in thy turn words of answer, what is thy name, and of what
line art thou born?"

Groa replied: "Groa is my name; my sire is a king, glorious in blood,
gleaming in armour. Disclose to us, thou also, who thou art, or whence
sprung!"

To whom Bess: "I am Bess, brave in battle, ruthless to foes, a terror to
nations, and oft drenching my right hand in the blood of foes."

Then said Groa: "Who, prithee, commands your lines? Under what captain
raise ye the war-standards? What prince controls the battle? Under whose
guidance is the war made ready?"

Bess in answer: "Gram, the blest in battle, rules the array: force nor
fear can swerve him; flaming pyre and cruel sword and ocean billow have
never made him afraid. Led by him, maiden, we raise the golden standards
of war."

Groa once more: "Turn your feet and go back hence, lest Sigtryg vanquish
you all with his own array, and fasten you to a cruel stake, your
throats haltered with the cord, and doom your carcases to the stiff
noose