Almost half the night was spent in pillaging.  In the morning, when the king found that they had fled, he prepared to pursue them, but was advised by one of his friends not to plan anything on a sudden or do it in haste.  His friend, indeed, tried to convince him that he needed a larger equipment, and that it was ill-advised to pursue the fugitives to Denmark with a handful.  But neither could this curb the king’s impetuous spirit; it could not bear the loss; for nothing had stung him more than this, that his preparations to slay another should have recoiled on his own men.  So he sailed to the harbour which is now called Omi.  Here the weather began to be bad, provision failed, and they thought it better, since die they must, to die by the sword than by famine.  And so the sailors turned their hand against one another, and hastened their end by mutual blows.  The king with a few men took to the cliffs and escaped.  Lofty barrows still mark the scene of the slaughter.  Meanwhile Erik ended his voyage fairly, and the wedding of Alfhild and Frode was kept.

Then came tidings of an inroad of the Sclavs, and Erik was commissioned to suppress it with eight ships, since Frode as yet seemed inexperienced in war.  Erik, loth ever to flinch from any manly undertaking, gladly undertook the business and did it bravely.  Learning that the pirates had seven ships, he sailed up to them with only one of his own, ordering the rest to be girt with timber parapets, and covered over with pruned boughs of trees.  Then he advanced to observe the number of the enemy more fully, but when the Sclavs pursued closely, he beat a quick retreat to his men.  But the enemy, blind to the trap, and as eager to take the fugitives, rowed smiting the waters fast and incessantly.  For the ships of Erik could not be clearly distinguished, looking like a leafy wood.  The enemy, after venturing into a winding strait, suddenly saw themselves surrounded by the fleet of Erik.  First, confounded by the strange sight, they thought that a wood was sailing; and then they saw that guile lurked under the leaves.  Therefore, tardily repenting their rashness, they tried to retrace their incautious voyage:  but while they were trying to steer about, they saw the enemy boarding them; Erik, however, put his ship ashore, and slung stones against the enemy from afar.  Thus most of the Sclavs were killed, and forty taken, who afterwards under stress of bonds and famine, and in strait of divers torments, gave up the ghost.

Meantime Frode, in order to cross on an expedition into Sclavia, had mustered a mighty fleet from the Danes, as well as from neighbouring peoples.  The smallest boat of this fleet could carry twelve sailors, and be rowed by as many oars.  Then Erik, bidding his men await him patiently went to tell Frode the tidings of the defeat he had inflicted.  As he sailed along he happened to see a pirate ship aground on some shallows; and being wont to utter weighty words upon chance occurrences, he said, “Obscure