[The Danish History<br> Books I-IX by Saxo Grammaticus (Saxo the Learned)]@TWC D-Link book
The Danish History
Books I-IX

BOOK EIGHT
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These beasts were very easy to capture, because they gathered in amazement at the unwonted sight of men, their fears being made bold.
On the following night monsters dashed down upon the shore, filled the forest with clamour, and beleaguered and beset the ships.

One of them, huger than the rest, strode over the waters, armed with a mighty club.
Coming close up to them, he bellowed out that they should never sail away till they had atoned for the crime they had committed in slaughtering the flock, and had made good the losses of the herd of the gods by giving up one man for each of their ships.

Thorkill yielded to these threats; and, in order to preserve the safety of all by imperilling a few, singled out three men by lot and gave them up.
This done, a favouring wind took them, and they sailed to further Permland.

It is a region of eternal cold, covered with very deep snows, and not sensible to the force even of the summer heats; full of pathless forests, not fertile in grain and haunted by beasts uncommon elsewhere.
Its many rivers pour onwards in a hissing, foaming flood, because of the reefs imbedded in their channels.
Here Thorkill drew up his ships ashore, and bade them pitch their tents on the beach, declaring that they had come to a spot whence the passage to Geirrod would be short.

Moreover, he forbade them to exchange any speech with those that came up to them, declaring that nothing enabled the monsters to injure strangers so much as uncivil words on their part: it would be therefore safer for his companions to keep silence; none but he, who had seen all the manners and customs of this nation before, could speak safely.


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