Heimskringla; Or, The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway

27. EGIL ULSERK'S BURIAL-GROUND.

King Hakon took all the ships of the sons of Eirik that had been left upon the strand, and had them drawn quite up, and brought on the land. Then he ordered that Egil Ulserk, and all the men of his army who had fallen, should be laid in the ships, and covered entirely over with earth and stones. King Hakon made many of the ships to be drawn up to the field of battle, and the hillocks over them are to be seen to the present day a little to the south of Fredarberg. At the time when King Hakon was killed, when Glum Geirason, in his song, boasted of King Hakon's fall, Eyvind Skaldaspiller composed these verses on this battle:—

     "Our dauntless king with Gamle's gore
     Sprinkled his bright sword o'er and o'er:
     Sprinkled the gag that holds the mouth
     Of the fell demon Fenriswolf (1).
     Proud swelled our warriors' hearts when he
     Drove Eirik's sons out to the sea,
     With all their Guatland host: but now
     Our warriors weep—Hakon lies low!"

High standing stones mark Egil Uslerk s grave.

   ENDNOTES: (1) The Fenriswolf, one of the children of Loke, begotten with
     a giantess, was chained to a rock, and gagged by a sword
     placed in his mouth, to prevent him devouring mankind.
     Fenriswolf's gag is a skaldic expression for a sword.—L.