Drinking the blude-red wine.
'To horse, to horse, my royal liege;
Your faes stand on the strand;
Full twenty thousand glittering spears
The king of Norse commands.'
'Bring me my steed, page, dapple-gray,'
Our good king rose and cried;
'A trustier beast in a' the land
A Scots king never tried.'
Hardyknute, summoned to the king's assistance, leaves his wife and daughter, 'Fairly fair,' under the care of his youngest son. As to the former lady—