“Then Sweyn answered, and looked to the earl, and spoke with a smile, and said thus: ‘Well spoken is this, lord, and friendly spoken, and it will be good to take a bit of good counsel from you; but some men lay that to your door, that ye too are men of little fairness.’ The earl answered: ‘I shall have to answer for my share, but a gossiping tongue drives me to say what I do.’ “Sweyn said: ‘Good, no doubt, drives you to it, lord. And so it shall be, that I will leave off sea-roving, for I find that I am growing old, and strength lessens much in hardships and warfare. Now I will go out on my autumn-cruise, and I would that it might be with no less glory than the spring-cruise was; but after that my wayfaring shall be over.’ The earl answers: ‘’Tis hard to see, messmate, whether death or lasting luck will come first.’ After that they dropped talking about it. Earl Harald fared away from the feast, and was led out with fitting gifts. So he and Sweyn parted with great love-tokens. “A little while after, Sweyn busks him for his roving cruise; he had seven long-ships, and all great. Hakon, Earl Harald’s son, went along with Sweyn on his voyage. They held on their course first to the Southern Isles, and got there little war-spoil; thence they fared out under Ireland, and harried there far and wide. They fared so far south as Dublin, and came upon them there very suddenly, so that the townsmen were not ware of them before they had got into the town. They took there much goods. They made prisoners there those men who were rulers there in the town. The upshot of their business was that they gave the town up into Sweyn’s power, and agreed to pay as great a ransom as he chose to lay upon them. Sweyn was also to hold the town with his men and to have rule over it. The Dublin men sware an oath to do this. Next morning Sweyn was to come into the town and take the ransom. “Now it must be told of what happened in the town during the night. The men of good counsel who were in the town held a meeting among themselves, and talked over the straits which had befallen them; it seemed to them hard to let their town come into the power of the Orkneyingers, and worst of all of that man whom they knew to be the most unjust man in the western lands. So they agreed amongst themselves that they would cheat Sweyn if they might. They took that counsel, that they dug great trenches before the burg-gate on the inside, and in many other places between the houses where it was meant that Sweyn and his men should pass; but men lay in wait there in the houses hard by with weapons. They laid planks over the trenches, so that they should fall down as soon as ever a man’s weight comes on them. After that they strewed straw on the planks so that the trenches might not be seen, and so bided the morrow.