ich was to decide which
people should henceforth have supremacy. Odin gazed with satisfaction
upon the Vandals, who were loudly praying to him for victory; but
Frigga watched the movements of the Winilers with more attention,
because they had entreated her aid. She therefore turned to Odin
and coaxingly inquired whom he meant to favour on the morrow; he,
wishing to evade her question, declared he would not decide, as it
was time for bed, but would give the victory to those upon whom his
eyes first rested in the morning.

This answer was shrewdly calculated, for Odin knew that his couch
was so turned that upon waking he would face the Vandals, and he
intended looking out from thence, instead of waiting until he had
mounted his throne. But, although so cunningly contrived, this plan
was frustrated by Frigga, who, divining his purpose, waited until he
was sound asleep, and then noiselessly turned his couch so that he
should face her favourites. Then she sent word to the Winilers to dress
their women in armour and send them out in battle array at dawn, with
their long hair carefully combed down over their cheeks and breasts.

"Take thou thy women-folk,
Maidens and wives:
Over your ankles
Lace on the white war-hose;
Over your bosoms
Link up the hard mail-nets;
Over your lips
Plait long tresses with cunning;--
So war beasts full-bearded
King Odin shall deem you,
When off the grey sea-beach
At sunrise ye greet him."

The Longbeards' Saga (Charles Kingsley).

These instructions were carried out with scrupulous exactness, and
when Odin awoke the next morning his first conscious glance fell upon
their armed host, and he exclaimed in surprise, "What Longbeards are
those?" (In German the ancient word for long beards was Langobarden,
which was the name used to designate the Lombards.) Frigga, upon
hearing this exclamation, which she had foreseen, immediately cried
out in triumph that Allfather had given them a new name, and was
in honour bound to follow the usual Northern custom and give also a
baptismal gift.

"'A name thou hast given them,
Shames neither thee nor them,
Well can they wear it.
Give them the victory,
First have they greeted thee;
Give them the victory,
Yoke-fellow mine!'"

The Longbeards' Saga (Charles Kingsley).

Odin, seeing he had been so cleverly outwitted, made no demur, and in
memory of