d and carried home by his foot-soldiers
supporting him in turn, to perish next day of the pain of his wounds.
The Ruthenian army gave his body a gorgeous funeral and buried it in
a splendid howe, which it piled in his name, to save the record of so
mighty a warrior from slipping out of the recollection of after ages.

So the Kurlanders and the Swedes, as though the death of Hother set them
free from the burden of their subjection, resolved to attack Denmark, to
which they were accustomed to do homage with a yearly tax. By this the
Slavs also were emboldened to revolt, and a number of others were turned
from subjects into foes. Rorik, in order to check this wrongdoing,
summoned his country to arms, recounted the deeds of his forefathers,
and urged them in a passionate harangue unto valorous deeds. But the
barbarians, loth to engage without a general, and seeing that they
needed a head, appointed a king over them; and, displaying all the rest
of their military force, hid two companies of armed men in a dark spot.
But Rorik saw the trap; and perceiving that his fleet was wedged in a
certain narrow creek among the shoal water, took it out from the sands
where it was lying, and brought it forth to sea; lest it should strike
on the oozy swamps, and be attacked by the foe on different sides. Also,
he resolved that his men should go into hiding during the day, where
they could stay and suddenly fall on the invaders of his ships. He said
that perchance the guile might in the end recoil on the heads of its
devisors. And in fact the barbarians who had been appointed to the
ambuscade knew nothing of the wariness of the Danes, and sallying
against them rashly, were all destroyed. The remaining force of the
Slavs, knowing nothing of the slaughter of their friends, hung in doubt
wondering over the reason of Rorik's tarrying. And after waiting long
for him as the months wearily rolled by, and finding delay every day
more burdensome, they at last thought they should attack him with their
fleet.

Now among them there was a man of remarkable stature, a wizard by
calling. He, when he beheld the squadrons of the Danes, said: "Suffer
a private combat to forestall a public slaughter, so that the danger
of many may be bought off at the cost of a few. And if any of you shall
take heart to fight it out with me, I will not flinch from these terms
of conflict. But first of all I demand that you accept the terms I
prescribe, the form whereof I hav