with desire for insurrection;
fancying that one of these men was unripe for his rank, and that the
other had run the course of his powers, alleging the weakness in years
of both, and declaring that the wandering wit of an old man made the
one, and that of a boy the other, unfit for royal power. But they fought
and crushed him, making him an example to all men, that no season of
life is to be deemed incompatible with valour.

Many other deeds also King Gram did. He declared war against Sumble,
King of the Finns; but when he set eyes upon the King's daughter, Signe,
he laid down his arms, the foeman turned into the suitor, and, promising
to put away his own wife, he plighted troth with her. But, while much
busied with a war against Norway, which he had taken up against King
Swipdag for debauching his sister and his daughter, he heard from
a messenger that Signe had, by Sumble's treachery, been promised in
marriage to Henry, King of Saxony. Then, inclining to love the maiden
more than his soldiers, he left his army, privily made his way to
Finland, and came in upon the wedding, which was already begun. Putting
on a garb of the utmost meanness, he lay down at the table in a seat of
no honour. When asked what he brought, he professed skill in leechcraft.
At last, when all were drenched in drunkenness, he gazed at the maiden,
and amid the revels of the riotous banquet, cursing deep the fickleness
of women, and vaunting loud his own deeds of valour, he poured out the
greatness of his wrath in a song like this:

"Singly against eight at once I drove the darts of death, and smote nine
with a back-swung sword, when I slew Swarin, who wrongfully assumed his
honours and tried to win fame unmerited; wherefore I have oft dyed in
foreign blood my blade red with death and reeking with slaughter, and
have never blenched at the clash of dagger or the sheen of helmet. Now
Signe, the daughter of Sumble, vilely spurns me, and endures vows not
mine, cursing her ancient troth; and, conceiving an ill-ordered love,
commits a notable act of female lightness; for she entangles, lures, and
bestains princes, rebuffing beyond all others the lordly of birth;
yet remaining firm to none, but ever wavering, and bringing to birth
impulses doubtful and divided."

And as he spoke he leapt up from where he lay, and there he cut Henry
down while at the sacred board and the embraces of his friends, carried
off his bride from amongst the bridesmaids, felled