The path that the footfarer must tread brims with horror.

It were safer to burden the back of the tall horse." Thereon Ragnar declared that he was a slave of the king, and gave as reason of his departure so far from home that, when he had been banished to the country on his shepherd's business, he had lost the flock of which he had charge, and despairing to recover it, had chosen rather to forbear from returning than to incur punishment.

Also, loth to say nothing about the estate of his brother, he further spoke the following poem: "Think us men, not monsters; we are slaves who drove our lingering flocks for pasture through the country.

But while we took our pastime in gentle sports, our flock chanced to stray and went into far-off fields.
And when our hope of finding them, our long quest failed, trouble came upon the mind of the wretched culprits.

And when sure tracks of our kine were nowhere to be seen, dismal panic filled our guilty hearts.