the first place, paid the penalty. It is counted, by the latest
commentators, to have been about A.D. 961, sixteenth or seventeenth
year of Hakon's pious, valiant, and worthy reign. Being at a feast
one day, with many guests, on the Island of Stord, sudden announcement
came to him that ships from the south were approaching in quantity,
and evidently ships of war. This was the biggest of all the
Blue-tooth foster-son invasions; and it was fatal to Hakon the Good
that night. Eyvind the Skaldaspillir (annihilator of all other
Skalds), in his famed _Hakon's Song_, gives account, and, still more
pertinently, the always practical Snorro. Danes in great multitude,
six to one, as people afterwards computed, springing swiftly to land,
and ranking themselves; Hakon, nevertheless, at once deciding not to
take to his ships and run, but to fight there, one to six; fighting,
accordingly, in his most splendid manner, and at last gloriously
prevailing; routing and scattering back to their ships and flight
homeward these six-to-one Danes. "During the struggle of the fight,"
says Snorro, "he was very conspicuous among other men; and while the
sun shone, his bright gilded helmet glanced, and thereby many weapons
were directed at him. One of his henchmen, Eyvind Finnson (_i.e._
Skaldaspillir, the poet), took a hat, and put it over the king's
helmet. Now, among the hostile first leaders were two uncles of the
Ericsons, brothers of Gunhild, great champions both; Skreya, the elder
of them, on the disappearance of the glittering helmet, shouted
boastfully, 'Does the king of the Norsemen hide himself, then, or has
he fled? Where now is the golden helmet?' And so saying, Skreya, and
his brother Alf with him, pushed on like fools or madmen. The king
said, 'Come on in that way, and you shall find the king of the
Norsemen.'" And in a short space of time braggart Skreya did come up,
swinging his sword, and made a cut at the king; but Thoralf the
Strong, an Icelander, who fought at the king's side, dashed his shield