length, perceiving that he yearned to revisit his native country, she resolved to accompany him. On their journey, they one night arrived at a house where a corpse was duly laid out, until the mournful funeral rites were celebrated. Here was an opportunity of consulting the will of the gods, and the magic giantess availed herself of it. Producing a piece of wood on which certain verses of might, in Runic characters, were inscribed[19], she caused it to be placed under the tongue of the deceased by Hadding. The effect was instantaneous: the corpse began to speak, and to utter the direst anathemas on her who had disturbed the repose of the dead. It predicted her immediate destruction in a neighbouring wood. No sooner, indeed, had they reached the wood, and erected their tent for the night, than a huge hand was seen to move around them. The terrified Hadding called on his companion for help; and she, dilating her body to a great extent, was able to seize the hand, and present it for amputation to the prince. From the wound issued more venom than blood. But the victory was dearly purchased; the gigantic witch was torn to pieces by the irritated powers of darkness. “Neither her supernatural condition,” says Saxo, “nor her vast bulk, availed her.” Hadding, however, did not much suffer by the event: a wise old man with one eye, pitying his disconsolate situation, provided him with a brother in arms, a celebrated pirate, and both entered into what was considered the holiest of compacts in the manner of the times, viz., each besmeared the footsteps of the other with his own blood. The two heroes being conquered by a chief on whom they made war, the same old man took Hadding on horseback to his own mysterious seat, and both renovated and prodigiously fortified him by a magic drink. At the same time a metrical prophecy told him how he was to escape from the captivity which impended over him. Who was this unknown benefactor? On his return to the place whence he was taken, he could perceive, through the folds of his mantle, that he was conveyed over the sea. The horse which bore him was evidently a demon, obedient to Odin, the god of the north.[20]