aring hemlocks was seen to raise her
head beside the brazier, and, stretching out the lap of her robe,
seemed to ask, "in what part of the world such fresh herbs had grown in
winter?" The king desired to know; and, wrapping him in her mantle, she
drew him with her underground, and vanished. I take it that the nether
gods purposed that he should pay a visit in the flesh to the regions
whither he must go when he died. So they first pierced through a certain
dark misty cloud, and then advancing along a path that was worn away
with long thoroughfaring, they beheld certain men wearing rich robes,
and nobles clad in purple; these passed, they at last approached sunny
regions which produced the herbs the woman had brought away. Going
further, they came on a swift and tumbling river of leaden waters,
whirling down on its rapid current divers sorts of missiles, and
likewise made passable by a bridge. When they had crossed this, they
beheld two armies encountering one another with might and main. And when
Hadding inquired of the woman about their estate: "These," she said,
"are they who, having been slain by the sword, declare the manner of
their death by a continual rehearsal, and enact the deeds of their past
life in a living spectacle." Then a wall hard to approach and to climb
blocked their further advance. The woman tried to leap it, but in vain,
being unable to do so even with her slender wrinkled body; then she
wrung off the head of a cock which she chanced to be taking down with
her, and flung it beyond the barrier of the walls; and forthwith the
bird came to life again, and testified by a loud crow to recovery of its
breathing. Then Hadding turned back and began to make homewards with
his wife; some rovers bore down on him, but by swift sailing he baffled
their snares; for though it was almost the same wind that helped both,
they were behind him as he clove the billows, and, as they had only just
as much sail, could not overtake him.

Meantime Uffe, who had a marvellously fair daughter, decreed that the
man who slew Hadding should have her. This sorely tempted one Thuning,
who got together a band of men of Perm (Byarmenses), being fain so to
win the desired advancement. Hadding was going to fall upon him, but
while he was passing Norway in his fleet he saw upon the beach an old
man signing to him, with many wavings of his mantle, to put into shore.
His companions opposed it, and declared that it would be a ruinous
divers