es, and lash with sundry tortures of stripes;
others they fastened to pegs, as with a noose, and punished with
mock-hanging. They scorched off the beard and hair with tapers; of
others they burned the hair of the groin with a brand. Only those
maidens might marry whose chastity they had first deflowered. Strangers
they battered with bones; others they compelled to drunkenness with
immoderate draughts, and made them burst. No man might give his daughter
to wife unless he had first bought their favour and goodwill. None might
contract any marriage without first purchasing their consent with a
bribe. Moreover, they extended their abominable and abandoned lust not
only to virgins, but to the multitude of matrons indiscriminately. Thus
a twofold madness incited this mixture of wantonness and frenzy. Guests
and strangers were proffered not shelter but revilings. All these
maddening mockeries did this insolent and wanton crew devise, and thus
under a boy-king freedom fostered licence. For nothing prolongs reckless
sin like the procrastination of punishment and vengeance. This unbridled
impudence of the soldiers ended by making the king detested, not only by
foreigners, but even by his own people, for the Danes resented such an
arrogant and cruel rule. But Grep was contented with no humble loves;
he broke out so outrageously that he was guilty of intercourse with the
queen, and proved as false to the king as he was violent to all other
men. Then by degrees the scandal grew, and the suspicion of his guilt
crept on with silent step. The common people found it out before the
king. For Grep, by always punishing all who alluded in the least to this
circumstance, had made it dangerous to accuse him. But the rumour of his
crime, which at first was kept alive in whispers, was next passed on in
public reports; for it is hard for men to hide another's guilt if they
are aware of it. Gunwar had many suitors; and accordingly Grep, trying
to take revenge for his rebuff by stealthy wiles, demanded the right
of judging the suitors, declaring that the princess ought to make the
choicest match. But he disguised his anger, lest he should seem to have
sought the office from hatred of the maiden. At his request the king
granted him leave to examine the merits of the young men. So he first
gathered all the wooers of Gunwar together on the pretence of a banquet,
and then lined the customary room of the princess with their heads--a
gruesome spectacle fo