Saxo Manipulations

4.2. When the Danish forces came upon the waiting Swedes, Ring,
who had instructed his men to bide patiently while Harald arranged
his companies in formation, forbade them to blow the battle signal till
they perceived the enemy king settled in his chariot near the
standards; he said he trusted that troops who depended on a blind
general could easily collapse. If greed for another’s empire had seized
hold of Harald in his declining years, he was as witless as he was
sightless; such a person could not be satisfied with his wealth, even
though, were he to consider his age, he ought to be pretty well
content with a tomb. The Swedes were under strong compulsion to
fight for their freedom, fatherland, and children, whereas their foes
had undertaken this war solely through foolhardy arrogance. On the
opposing side, moreover, there were actually very few Danes; the
majority who stood in the enemy line were Saxons and other girlish
peoples. Consequently Swedes and Norwegians should reflect how
vastly superior the multitudes of the North had always been to
Germans and Wends. Their army, compounded not of solid military
timber, so it seemed, but the slimy dregs of humanity, would prove
contemptible. This harangue fired high the spirits of his soldiers.

4.3. After Bruni, as Harald’s deputy, had been told to construct the
battle line he designed a wedge-shaped front, posting Hetha on the
right flank, putting Haki in control of the left, and making Visna the
standard-bearer. Harald, standing prominently in his chariot,
complained, in as loud tones as he could, that his beneficence to Ring was
being repaid with ingratitude. The latter was advancing hostilities
against him, even though he had received his kingdom from Harald’s
own hand. Without pity or mercy for his old uncle, he was putting his
personal ambitions before any consideration of kinship or kindness. He
bade the Danes recall how illustrious their foreign victories had always
been and how it was their custom to be the lords rather than the servants
of their neighbours; he exhorted them not to permit such splendid glory
to be undermined by the presumptuousness of a conquered race, nor let
the dominions they had won for him in the bloom of his youth be filched
away now that he was weakened by old age.

4.4. The trumpets blared and each side joined battle with utmost
violence. You might well have imagined that the heavens were suddenly
rushing to assault the earth, that woods and fields were subsiding, that
the whole of creation was in turmoil and ancient chaos had returned, all
things human and divine convulsed by a raging tempest and everything
tumbling simultaneously into destruction. When it came to the hurling
of spears, the intolerable hiss of weapons filled the entire air with a din
quite unbelievable. The steam from men’s wounds drew an unexpected
mist across the sky and the daylight was concealed under a hailstorm of
missiles. In that engagement the activity of the slingers counted for
much. After the shafts had been flung from hands and catapults, the
troops fought it out at close quarters with swords and iron-clad maces.
It was then indeed that most blood was spilt. Sweat streamed from their
weary bodies, while the clash of blades could be heard miles away.

4. 5. Starkath, who was the first to recall the sequence of the war’s
events in his native tongue, records how, fighting foremost in the
battle line, he laid low Harald’s lords, Hun, Elli, Hort, and Burgar,
and sheared off Visna’s right hand. He declares also that a certain Roi
and two others, Gnepia and Garth, were wounded by him and fell in
the fray. To these he adds the father of Skalk without mentioning his
name. Starkath swears too that he hurled the bravest of the Danes,
Haki, to the earth and in return was so injured by him that he
departed from the field with a lung protruding from his chest, his
neck cut right to the middle and a hand minus one finger, whose
gaping gash for a long time seemed unable to produce a scar or be
susceptible to cure.

4. 6. According to the same witness the maiden Vyborg, in contending
against the foe, prostrated the champion Soti. While she was
threatening more of Ring’s warriors with slaughter, Thorkil, who had
come from Telemark, shot an arrow and transfixed her. Such men of
Gotland, skilful archers, would string their bows so tautly that their
shafts could pierce even shields. No instrument proved more deadly.
The arrowheads penetrated breastplates and helmets as if they were
defenceless bodies.

4. 7. Meanwhile Ubbi the Frisian, the ablest of Harald’s soldiers and
surpassing the rest in his physical frame, apart from eleven he had
wounded in the conflict, killed twenty-five chosen champions. These
were all Swedes or Götar by descent. Next, attacking the enemy’s
front line and leaping into the thickest of his adversaries, he dispersed
the Swedes this way and that as they scattered in terror before his
spear and sword. It had almost turned into a rout when Haddir,
Roald, and Gretir, emulating his valour, assaulted Ubbi, determined
to risk their own lives in order to avert wholesale destruction.
However, since they were afraid to press in closely, they carried on
their action from a distance with arrows, which descended in an ever-
increasing shower to riddle Ubbi’s body; yet no man ventured to join
in hand-to-hand combat with him. A hundred and forty-four bolts
had occupied the warrior’s breast before his corporeal strength failed
and his knees sank to the earth. So, ultimately by the activity of the
Thronds and those who dwelt in the province of Gudbrandsdalen,
the Danes experienced a massive defeat. It was the supreme vigour of
the archers that exacerbated the fighting and no other factor inflicted
greater damage on our soldiers.

4.8. Harald, now an old man without sight, heard the dejected
mutterings of his men clearly and understood that Fortune had
smiled more cheerfully on his enemies. Riding as he was in his scythed
chariot, he asked Bruni, who had craftily taken over as his driver, to find
out what system Ring was using in the formation of his army. The
other, his face relaxing into a little smile, answered that Ring had
entered battle with a crescent-shaped line. Hearing this, the king grew
frightened and demanded in great amazement who could be responsible
for instructing Ring to draw up an army in such fashion, especially as
Odin was the teacher and inventor of these tactics, and no one but he,
Harald, had learnt this novel pattern of warfare from him.

4.9. When Bruni stayed silent, it entered the king’s mind that here
was Odin, a deity once his friend and at the moment disguised under
this change of shape in order to grant or withhold his help. Soon
Harald started to beseech him intently, begging him, as he had
previously acted kindly towards the Danes, to give them also this final
victory and let the completion of his bounty match its beginning; as a
gift he promised that he would dedicate to Odin the souls of the slain.
But Bruni was completely unmoved by the suppliant’s prayers; he
suddenly jerked the king from the chariot, dashed him to the ground,
snatched his mace as he fell and, whirling it at his head, dispatched
him with his own weapon. Innumerable corpses lay round the king’s
chariot, a ghastly heap, which rose above the tops of the wheels. In
fact the piled bodies even came up to the level of the shaft. Almost
twelve thousand of Ring’s noblemen lost their lives upon this
battlefield; but on Harald’s side about thirty thousand nobles fell,
not counting the slaughter of the common folk.

5. i. When Ring learnt of his opponent’s death, he gave his men a
signal to slacken formation and ordered them to cease fighting. Then,
under cover of truce, he struck a treaty with his enemies, having advised
them that it would be folly to prolong the engagement without a leader.
After this he instructed the Swedes to search everywhere among the
strewn mounds of carcases for Harald’s body, lest the departed
monarch should be cheated of his due funeral rites. The people eagerly
set about the work of rolling the corpses on to their backs. This task
consumed half a day. Finally, after the body had been found together
with the mace, Ring, believing that propitiation must be rendered to
Harald’s ghost, attached to the royal chariot the horse which he was
riding himself, laid a handsome golden saddle upon it, and dedicated it
to the king’s honour. Then he offered his vows and added a prayer that
Harald, borne on this steed, might outstrip those who shared his doom
on his way to the underworld and importune the lord of the infernal
regions6 to grant his comrades and foes alike a peaceful abode. He next
raised a pyre, on which the Danes were bidden to deposit their ruler’s
gilded ship to feed the flames. As the superimposed corpse was being
consumed in the fire, he went round the mourning jarls and strongly
exhorted them all to cast a large quantity of weapons, gold, and precious
objects onto the pyre as tinder, thereby showing reverence to such a
mighty king, who had deserved this respect from them all. He
commanded that when the body was completely burnt its ashes
should be consigned to an urn, transported to Lejre, and there
buried in a royal funeral with his horse and his arms. By carefully
performing the due obsequies for his uncle, Ring won the Danes’
goodwill and turned inimical hatred into friendship.

5.2. Afterwards he was entreated by the Danes to appoint Hetha to
rule the remnants of their land, but fearing his enemies might
suddenly unite against him with restored strength he broke Scania
away from the Danish community, placing it under the separate
governorship of Oli, and commanded only Zealand, and the kingdom’s
territories that were left, to obey Hetha. Thus the empire of
the Danes was brought by changing Fortune under Swedish power.
Such was the outcome of the fighting at Bråvalla.


- Gesta Danorum, Book VIII