THE STORY OF THE HEATH-SLAYINGS

CHAPTER XXXVIII
Eric's Song On The Heathslayings.

Online Medieval and Classical Library Release #34

Some time that winter it befell that there was one who asked Eric the Skald as to what had befallen, and how many lives had been lost. He sang:

     "Famed groves of the race-course whereon the sword runneth,
     All up on the Heath 'twas eleven lay dead
     In the place where the lime-board, the red board of battle,
     Went shivering to pieces midst din of the shields.
     And thereof was the cause of the battle, that erewhile
     It was Gisli fell in with his fate and his ending
     In the midst of the fray of the fire of the fight:
     'Gainst the wielder of wound-shaft we thrust forth the
                                             onslaught."