By this law he did injustice to valour, reckoning the rank of the soldiers and not their courage; and he was open to the charge of error in the matter, because he set familiar acquaintance above desert.
After this the king asked Erik whether the army of the Huns was as large as the forces of Olmar, and Erik answered in the following song: "By Hercules, I came on a countless throng, a throng that neither earth nor wave could hold.

Thick flared all their camp-fires, and the whole wood blazed up; the flame betokened a numberless array.

The earth sank under the fraying of the horse-hoofs; creaking waggons rattled swiftly.
The wheels rumbled, the driver rode upon the winds, so that the chariots sounded like thunder.

The earth hardly bore the throngs of men-at-arms, speeding on confusedly; they trod it, but it could not bear their weight.

I thought that the air crashed and the earth was shaken, so mighty was the motion of the stranger army.