t
us ply our warfare bare-breasted, with flashing blades. Let the rumour
of our rage beacon forth: boldly let us grind to powder the column of
the foe; nor let the battle be long and chafe us; nor let our onset be
shattered in rout and be still."

When he had said this, he gripped his hilt with both hands, and,
fearless of peril, swung his shield upon his back and slew many. Hadding
therefore called on the powers with which he was allied to protect him,
and on a sudden Wagnhofde rode up to fight on his side. And when Asmund
saw his crooked sword, he cried out, and broke into the following
strain:

"Why fightest thou with curved sword? The short sword shall prove thy
doom, the javelin shall be flung and bring forth death. Thou shouldst
conquer thy foe by thy hand, but thou trustest that he can be rent
by spells; thou trustest more in words than rigour, and puttest thy
strength in thy great resource. Why dost thus beat me back with thy
shield, threatening with thy bold lance, when thou art so covered with
wretched crimes and spotted all over? Thus hath the brand of shame
bestained thee, rotting in sin, lubber-lipped."

While he thus clamoured, Hadding, flinging his spear by the thong,
pierced him through. But Asmund lacked not comfort even for his death;
for while his life flickered in the socket he wounded the foot of his
slayer, and by this short instant of revenge he memorized his fall,
punishing the other with an incurable limp. Thus crippling of a limb
befell one of them and loss of life the other. Asmund's body was buried
in solemn state at Upsala and attended with royal obsequies. His wife
Gunnhild, loth to outlive him, cut off her own life with the sword,
choosing rather to follow her lord in death than to forsake him by
living. Her friends, in consigning her body to burial, laid her with her
husband's dust, thinking her worthy to share the mound of the man, her
love for whom she had set above life. So there lies Gunnhild, clasping
her lord somewhat more beautifully in the tomb than she had ever done in
the bed.

After this Hadding, now triumphant, wasted Sweden. But Asmund's son,
named Uffe, shrinking from a conflict, transported his army into
Denmark, thinking it better to assail the house of his enemy than to
guard his own, and deeming it a timely method of repelling his wrongs
to retaliate upon his foe what he was suffering at his hands. Thus the
Danes had to return and defend their own, preferring the sa