For the war between this man and Gudorm, the son of Harald, ended suddenly with such slaughter that they were both slain, with numberless others; and the royal stock of the Danes, now worn out by the most terrible massacres, was reduced to the only son of the above Siward.
This man (Erik) won the fortune of a throne by losing his kindred; it was luckier for him to have his relations dead than alive.

He forsook the example of all the rest, and hastened to tread in the steps of his grandfather; for he suddenly came out as a most zealous practitioner of roving.

And would that he had not shown himself rashly to inherit the spirit of Ragnar, by his abolition of Christian worship! For he continually tortured all the most religious men, or stripped them of their property and banished them.

But it were idle for me to blame the man's beginnings when I am to praise his end.

For that life is more laudable of which the foul beginning is checked by a glorious close, than that which begins commendably but declines into faults and infamies.