Heimskringla; Or, The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway

15. HARALD'S JOURNEY FROM CONSTANTINOPLE.

The same night King Harald and his men went to the house where Maria slept and carried her away by force. Then they went down to where the galleys of the Varings lay, took two of them and rowed out into Sjavid sound. When they came to the place where the iron chain is drawn across the sound, Harald told his men to stretch out at their oars in both galleys; but the men who were not rowing to run all to the stern of the galley, each with his luggage in his hand. The galleys thus ran up and lay on the iron chain. As soon as they stood fast on it, and would advance no farther, Harald ordered all the men to run forward into the bow. Then the galley, in which Harald was, balanced forwards and swung down over the chain; but the other, which remained fast athwart the chain, split in two, by which many men were lost; but some were taken up out of the sound. Thus Harald escaped out of Constantinople and sailed thence into the Black Sea; but before he left the land he put the lady ashore and sent her back with a good escort to Constantinople and bade her tell her relation, the Empress Zoe, how little power she had over Harald, and how little the empress could have hindered him from taking the lady. Harald then sailed northwards in the Ellipalta and then all round the Eastern empire. On this voyage Harald composed sixteen songs for amusement and all ending with the same words. This is one of them:—

     "Past Sicily's wide plains we flew,
     A dauntless, never-wearied crew;
     Our viking steed rushed through the sea,
     As viking-like fast, fast sailed we.
     Never, I think, along this shore
     Did Norsemen ever sail before;
     Yet to the Russian queen, I fear,
     My gold-adorned, I am not dear."

With this he meant Ellisif, daughter of King Jarisleif in Novgorod.