beds of down on her corpse, as she desired; but these honours
fall short of what is due, as she still lies in the same clothes.
It would be more suitable to raise her, and change her dress."
As soon as the body was raised in the bed all sorts of corruption
and foul smells came from it, and it was necessary in all haste
to gather a pile of wood and burn it; but before this could be
done the body turned blue, and worms, toads, newts, paddocks, and
all sorts of ugly reptiles came out of it, and it sank into
ashes. Now the king came to his understanding again, threw the
madness out of his mind, and after that day ruled his kingdom as
before. He was strengthened and made joyful by his subjects, and
his subjects by him and the country by both.



26. OF THJODOLF OF HVIN, THE SKALD.

After King Harald had experienced the cunning of the Fin woman,
he was so angry that he drove from him the sons he had with her,
and would not suffer them before his eyes. But one of them,
Gudrod Ljome, went to his foster-father Thjodolf of Hvin, and
asked him to go to the king, who was then in the Uplands; for
Thjodolf was a great friend of the king. And so they went, and
came to the king's house late in the evening, and sat down
together unnoticed near the door. The king walked up and down
the floor casting his eye along the benches; for he had a feast
in the house, and the mead was just mixed. The king then
murmured out these lines: --

"Tell me, ye aged gray-haired heroes,