the royal table the sons of Swerting, the murderers of Frode, and the ostentatious luxury of the feast, he grew still darker. To appease him, the queen drew a coronet from her brow, and presented it to him; yet he not only rejected it, but threw it in her face. To charm him, the lute was played: he sat like a statue, scorning alike the host, the guests, the costly viands. A trumpet next sounded: he threw a bone which he was picking at the head of the musician. But his chief wrath was turned against the king, whom he apostrophised in no measured terms. At length Ingel was affected by his reproaches; he drew his sword; Sterkodder did the same; and the floor was soon covered with the blood of the murderers. After this exploit, the champion, in great joy, took leave of the king, whom he saw no more. One of his remaining actions was little worthy of his fame. By twelve conspirators of Zealand, who detested the yoke of Olo, their king, he was bribed to murder that sovereign, and he did so in the bath. The reward which he received for this inglorious deed—one hundred and twenty pounds of gold—afforded him no pleasure: remorse took possession of his soul; he sighed whenever the name of Olo was mentioned; and his days were miserable. In addition to this calamity, age and blindness visited him; and he became so weary of life, that he resolved to leave it. To die in the ordinary course of nature was not fitting a champion, still less one that aspired to the banquets of Odin.[80] Supporting himself on two crutches, with two swords at his side, he placed himself by the highway, having round his neck the gold which he had received for the murder of Olo, and which was to be the reward of the man who should do the same friendly office for him. But he scorned to die by an ignoble hand; and when a rustic, thinking two swords were too many for an old man, asked him for one, he bade the rustic approach for it, and killed him on the spot. Two companions of a prince whose father Sterkodder had killed, one day advanced against him; but he killed both with his crutches. The prince, struck with equal admiration and fear, approached, and a conversation of some length, in which the hero boasted of his past deeds, followed between them. At the conclusion, Sterkodder, aware of the youth’s noble birth, and convinced that he could not die by a better hand, begged Hother to kill him, and held out his sword for the purpose. The prince hesitated; but being told that the act would be a pious duty towards the manes of his father, and being still more influenced by the view of the gold, he separated the head from the gigantic body of the hero.[81]