From stereograph, copyright by Underwood and Underwood, N. Y.
BUSY FARMERS IN A HILLSIDE FIELD, ABOVE ARE. SWEDEN.
In the town of Jomsborg, on the island of Wollin, near the mouth of the Oder, dwelt a daring band of piratical warriors known as the Jomsvikings, who were famed for their indomitable courage. War was their trade, rapine their means of livelihood, and they were sworn to obey the orders of their chief, to aid each other to the utmost, to bear pain unflinchingly, dare the extremity of danger, and face death like heroes. They kept all women out of their community, lest their devotion to war might be weakened, and stood ready to sell their swords to the highest bidder.
To this band of plunderers Harald appealed and found them ready for the task. Their chief, Earl Sigvalde, brought together a great host of warriors at a funeral feast to his father, and there, while ale and mead flowed abundantly, he vowed, flagon in hand, that he would drive Earl Haakon from the Norse realm or perish in the attempt. His viking followers joined him in the vow. The strong liquor was in their veins and there was no enterprise they were not ready to undertake. When their sober senses returned with the next morning, they measured better the weight of the enterprise; but they had sworn to it and were not the men to retreat from a vow they had taken.
Erik, an unruly son of Earl Haakon, had fled from his father's court in disgrace and was now in Viken, and here the rumor of the vikings' oath reached his ears. At once, forgetting his quarrel with his father, he hastened north with all the men he could gather to Earl Haakon's aid, preceding the Jomsvikings, who were sailing slowly up the shores of Norway, plundering as they went in their usual fashion. They had a fleet of sixty ships and a force of over seven thousand well-trained warriors. Haakon, warned by his son, met them with three times their number of ships, though these were smaller and lighter craft. On board were about ten thousand men. Such were the forces that met in what the sagas call the greatest battle that had ever been fought in Norway.
Soon the embattled ships met and the conflict grew fast and furious, hurtling weapons filling the air and men falling on all sides. Great was the carnage and blood flowed in streams on the fighting ships. Earl Haakon stood in the prow of his ship in the heat of the fight, arrows and spears whirling around him in such numbers that his shirt of mail became so torn and rent that he threw it off as useless. The high ships of the vikings gave them an advantage which told heavily against their antagonists, spears and arrows being poured down from their sides.
In the height of the battle Earl Haakon disappeared. As the legends tell he went ashore with his youngest son Erling, whom he sacrificed to the heathen gods to win their aid in the battle. Hardly had he done this deed of blood when a dense black cloud arose and a violent hail-storm broke over the ships, the hail-stones weighing each two ounces and beating so fiercely in the faces of the Jomsvikings as nearly to blind them. Some say that the Valkyries, the daughters of Odin, were seen in the prow of the earl's ship, filling the air with their death-dealing arrows.
Despite the storm and the supernatural terrors that they conjured up, the Jomsvikings continued to fight, though their decks were slippery with blood and melting hail. Only one coward appeared among them, their chief Earl Sigvalde, who suddenly turned his ship and fled. When Vagn Aakesson, the most daring of the Jomsvikings, saw this recreant act he was frantic with rage.
"You ill-born hound," he cried, "why do you fly and leave your men in the lurch? Shame on you, and may shame cling to you to your death!"