t his ill deserts with grace rather than
chastisement; because the man seemed to have aimed at the crown rather
at his wife's instance than of his own ambition, and to have been the
imitator and not the cause of the wrong. But he took Ulfhild away from
him and forced her to wed his friend Scot, the same man that founded the
Scottish name; esteeming change of wedlock a punishment for her. As she
went away he even escorted her in the royal chariot, requiting evil
with good; for he regarded the kinship of his sister rather than her
disposition, and took more thought for his own good name than of her
iniquity. But the fair deeds of her brother did not make her obstinate
and wonted hatred slacken a whit; she wore the spirit of her new husband
with her design of slaying Frode and mastering the sovereignty of the
Danes. For whatsoever design the mind has resolutely conceived, it is
slow to quit; nor is a sin that is long schemed swept away by the stream
of years. For the temper of later life follows the mind of childhood;
nor do the traces easily fade of vices which have been stamped upon the
character in the impressible age. Finding the ears of her husband deaf,
she diverted her treachery from her brother against her lord, hiring
bravoes to cut his throat while he slept. Scot was told about this by a
waiting-woman, and retired to bed in his cuirass on the night on which
he had heard the deed of murder was to be wrought upon him. Ulfhild
asked him why he had exchanged his wonted ways to wear the garb of
steel; he rejoined that such was just then his fancy. The agents of
the treachery, when they imagined him in a deep sleep, burst in; but
he slipped from his bed and cut them down. The result was, that he
prevented Ulfhild from weaving plots against her brother, and also left
a warning to others to beware of treachery from their wives.

Meantime the design occurred to Frode of a campaign against Friesland;
he was desirous to dazzle the eyes of the West with the glory he had won
in conquering the East. He put out to ocean, and his first contest was
with Witthe, a rover of the Frisians; and in this battle he bade his
crews patiently bear the first brunt of the enemy's charge by merely
opposing their shields, ordering that they should not use their missiles
before they perceived that the shower of the enemy's spears was utterly
silent. This the Frisians hurled as vehemently as the Danes received it
impassively; for Witthe supposed t