Followed bold Eirik to the south;
The brave, who sport in blood -- each one
With the bold earl to sea is gone."

The Swedish king and Earl Eirik sailed to meet the Danish king,
and they had all, when together, an immense force.



109. EARL SIGVALDE'S TREACHEROUS PLANS.

At the same time that king Svein sent a message to Svithjod for
an army, he sent Earl Sigvalde to Vindland to spy out King Olaf
Trygvason's proceedings, and to bring it about by cunning devices
that King Svein and King Olaf should fall in with each other. So
Sigvalde sets out to go to Vindland. First, he came to Jomsborg,
and then he sought out King Olaf Trygvason. There was much
friendship in their conversation, and the earl got himself into
great favour with the king. Astrid, the Earl's wife, King
Burizleif's daughter, was a great friend of King Olaf Trygvason,
particularly on account of the connection which had been between
them when Olaf was married to her sister Geira. Earl Sigvalde
was a prudent, ready-minded man; and as he had got a voice in
King Olaf's council, he put him off much from sailing homewards,
finding various reasons for delay. Olaf's people were in the
highest degree dissatisfied with this; for the men were anxious
to get home, and they lay ready to sail, waiting only for a wind.
At last Earl Sigvalde got a secret message from Denmark that the
Swedish king's army was arrived from the east, and that Earl
Eirik's also was ready; and that all these chiefs had resolved to