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168 BELiqUON OF THE HOETHMEN.
and Sigmund was left severely wounded upon
the battle-field. His wife wished to cure him but
" Odin," said he, " wishes not
he declined her help ;
that I shall swing my sword agaia after it is once
broken ; I have fought as lopg as it was his will."*
The Danish King Harald Hildatand was from
to Odin, and he was
his childhood consecrated .
afterwards throughout his whole life led on by this
God to victory. But in his advanced age Odin involved
him in a quarrel with his nephew, Sigurd
Eing, then with his own hand, imder the semblance
of Brun, a military chief, guided the chariot of the
blind king at the greats battle of Bravalla Heath,
and finally, in the tumult of battle, slew his favor-
ite with his own war-club.f
WhenStyrbjorn Sviakappi—». e., Sweden's Cham-
pion—attacked his tmcle the Swedish king Eirik
Sigrsseli, the latter a.pplied to Odin and oflfered him-
self up to him for the sake of victory. Odin ap-
peared to him in the form of a la^ge man with
a slouched hat, reached hini a reed and bade him
shoot it over the hosts of Styrbjorn, with the words
" Odin owns you all !" Eirik did as he was com-
manded, and the reed became a spear as it fiew
through the air above the enemy. Styrbjorn and
his people were struck with blindness and buried
beneath a mountain slide.:]:
Sometimes, also, it was believed, Odin would call
his favorites to himself, when not engaged in battle.
* VolstingaS. 8, 11, 12.
f Saxo Grrammatious 1, 7-8
i Styrb. |4ttr, 2.