The story of the "Children preserved" is not very clearly told, and
Saxo seems to have euhemerized. It is evidently of the same type as the
Lionel-Lancelot story in the Arthurian cycle. Two children, ordered to
be killed, are saved by the slaying of other children in their place;
and afterwards by their being kept and named as dogs; they come to their
own and avenge their wrongs.

The "Journey to Hell" story is told of Eric, who goes to a far land to
fetch a princess back, and is successful. It is apparently an adventure
of Swipdag, if everyone had their rights. It is also told of Thorkill,
whose adventures are rather of the "True Thomas" type.

The "Test of Endurance" by sitting between fires, and the relief of the
tortured and patient hero by a kindly trick, is a variant of the famous
Eddic Lays concerning Agnar.

The "Robbers of the Island", evidently comes from an Icelandic source
(cf. The historic "Holmveria Saga" and Icelandic folk-tales of later
date), the incident of the hero slaying his slave, that the body might
be mistaken for his, is archaic in tone; the powerful horse recalls
Grani, Bayard, and even Sleipner; the dog which had once belonged to
Unfoot (Ofote), the giant shepherd (cf. its analogues in old Welsh
tales), is not quite assimilated or properly used in this story.
It seems (as Dr. Rydberg suspects) a mythical story coloured by the
Icelandic relater with memory full of the robber-hands of his own land.

The stratagem of "Starcad", who tried even in death to slay his slayer,
seems an integral part of the Starcad story; as much as the doom of
three crimes which are to be the price for the threefold life that a
triple man or giant should enjoy. The noose story in Starcad (cf. that