Starchaterus was born in Sweden, a few years after the Christian era. He was of giant stature, and of strength and courage correspondent to the magnitude of his frame, so that in prowess he was held inferior to none of mortal parentage; and, as he excelled all in bodily endowments, so his life was protracted to three times the usual duration of human existence. Like his great prototype, the Grecian Hercules, he traversed the neighbouring regions, and went even to Ireland and Constantinople in quest of adventures; but, unlike him, he was animated by a most intolerant hatred of everything approaching to luxury, insomuch that he treated an invitation to dinner as an insult, and inflicted severe punishment upon all who were so imprudently hospitable as to request his company. For it was the mark of a buffoon and parasite, he said, to run after the smell of another man’s kitchen, for the sake of better fare.[12] In other respects the severity of his manners was more commendable; when he found any of the classes who live by the follies or vices of mankind mixing with soldiers, he drove them away with the scourge, esteeming them unworthy to receive death from the hands of brave men. In addition to his other accomplishments, he was skilled in poetry, and persecuted luxury in verse no less successfully than by corporeal inflictions, as is evident from certain of his compositions, which have been translated into Latin by Saxo Grammaticus. He went to Russia on purpose to fight Visin, who possessed the power of blunting weapons with a look, and trusting in this magic power, exercised all sorts of cruelty and oppression. Starchaterus rendered the charm of no avail by covering his sword with thin leather, and then obtained an easy victory.