“King Ólaf stood on the lypting of the Serpent, and rose high up; he had a gilt shield and a gilt helmet, and was very easily recognised. He wore a short red silk kirtle over his coat of mail. When he saw that the hosts of his foes began to separate, and that the standards were raised in front of the chiefs, he asked: ‘Who is chief of that standard which is opposite us?’ He was told that it was King Svein with the Danish host. The king said: ‘We are not afraid of those cowards, for no more courage is there in the Danes than in wood-goats; never were Danes victorious over Northmen, and they will not conquer us to-day. But what chief follows the standards which are to the right?’ He was told that it was Olaf the Swede, with the Svia host. The king added: ‘Easier and pleasanter will the Swedes think it to sit at home and lick their sacrifice bowls[161] than to board the Long Serpent to-day under your weapons, and I think we need not fear the horse-eating Swedes; but who owns those large ships to the left of the Danes?’ ‘It is,’ they said, ‘Eirik jarl Hakonsson.’ King Olaf replied: ‘This host is full of high-born men whom they have ranged against us; Eirik jarl thinks he has just cause for fighting us, it is likely we shall have a hard struggle with him and his men, for they are Northmen like ourselves.’ Then the kings and the jarl rowed at King Olaf.... The horns were blown, and both sides shouted a war-cry, and a hard battle commenced. Sigvaldi let his ships row to and fro, and did not take part in the battle. “The battle raged fiercely, at first with arrows from cross-bows and hand-bows, and then with spears and javelins, and all say that King Olaf fought most manfully.... “King Svein’s men turned their stems as thickly as they could towards both sides of the Long Serpent, as it stood much further forward than the other ships of King Olaf; the Danes also attacked the Short Serpent and the Crane, and the fight was of the sharpest, and the carnage great. All the stem-defenders on the Serpent who could fought hand-to-hand, but King Olaf himself and those aft shot with bows and used short swords (handsax), and repeatedly killed and wounded the Danir. “Though King Svein made the hardest onset on the Northmen with sixty ships, the Danish and Swedish hosts nevertheless were incessantly within shooting distance; King Olaf made the bravest defence with his men, but still they fell. King Olaf fought most boldly, he shot chiefly with bows and spears, but when the chief attack was made on the Serpent he went forward in hand-to-hand fight, and cleft many a man’s skull with his sword.