Donar: “Do you ask what I did to Rungner,
The giant with sturdy heart and head of stone?
I felled him then, he lies at my feet.
And what did you, Harbardh, the while?”
Harbardh: “For more than five full winters
Was I on an island that is called Allgrün;
There I found men to fight and enemies to fell,
Many things to prove, and many maids to free,” etc.
Singing the praise of one’s future deeds is another form of such boasting. A company of carousing men have need of a wild boar or some other sin offering to go through their midst as they perjure themselves with oaths concerning the hazardous and difficult deeds which they mean to perform.
Before taking up games of chance again I mention once more the fact that many reasoning games are also rivalries—dominoes, for example, and backgammon[413]—since the chief effort is to reach a certain goal first and direct efforts are made to embarrass and retard the adversary, so that genuine fighting play results.