happening to go and hunt in the woods, brought home some
snakes, found by his escort, for his daughter to rear. She speedily
obeyed the instructions of her father, and endured to rear a race of
adders with her maiden hands. Moreover, she took care that they should
daily have a whole ox-carcase to gorge upon, not knowing that she was
privately feeding and keeping up a public nuisance. The vipers grew up,
and scorched the country-side with their pestilential breath. Whereupon
the king, repenting of his sluggishness, proclaimed that whosoever
removed the pest should have his daughter.

Many warriors were thereto attracted by courage as much as by desire;
but all idly and perilously wasted their pains. Ragnar, learning from
men who travelled to and fro how the matter stood, asked his nurse for
a woolen mantle, and for some thigh-pieces that were very hairy, with
which he could repel the snake-bites. He thought that he ought to use a
dress stuffed with hair to protect himself, and also took one that
was not unwieldy, that he might move nimbly. And when he had landed in
Sweden, he deliberately plunged his body in water, while there was a
frost falling, and, wetting his dress, to make it the less penetrable,
he let the cold freeze it. Thus attired, he took leave of his
companions, exhorted them to remain loyal to Fridleif, and went on to
the palace alone. When he saw it, he tied his sword to his side,
and lashed a spear to his right hand with a thong. As he went on, an
enormous snake glided up and met him. Another, equally huge, crawled up,
following in the trail of the first. They strove now to buffet the young
man with the coils of their tails, and now to spit and belch their venom
stubbornly upon him. Meantime the courtiers, betaking themselves to
safer hiding, watched the struggle from afar like affrighted little
girls. The king was stricken with equal fear, and fled, with a few
followers, to a narrow shelter. But Ragnar, trusting in the hardness of
his frozen dress, foiled the poisonous assaults not only with his arms,
but with his attire, and, singlehanded, in unweariable combat, stood
up against the two gaping creatures, who stubbornly poured forth their
venom upon him. For their teeth he repelled with his shield, their
poison with his dress. At last he cast his spear, and drove it against
the bodies of the brutes, who were attacking him hard. He pierced both
their hearts, and his battle ended in victory.

After Ragna