Sögubrot Reference

The king sent Bruni and Heid to see how Hring had disposed his forces and whether he was ready for battle.

Bruni says, “It seems to me that Hring and his host are most likely ready to fight. He’s disposed his forces strangely. He’s drawn them up in a wedge formation, and it won’t be good to fight with him.

Then says King Harald, “Who can have taught Hring the wedge formation? I though no one knew it but me and Odin. Has Odin’s generosity with victories finally failed me? That has never been the case yet, and again I beseech him not to let it be so now. But if he doesn’t wish to grant me victory, then let him cause me to fall in battle with all my host, if he doesn’t wish the Danes to triumph as before. And all the dead who fall on this field, I give to Odin.”

It was as Bruni said, that Hring had drawn up his whole army into a wedge formation. Their ranks then seemed all the deeper for the wedge projecting like a snout at the front, but one wing reached as far as the River Var, and the other down to Bravik.


- Fragment of a Saga about Certain Early Kings in Denmark and Sweden (Sögubrot af nokkrum fornkonungum), Chapter 8