And there were household slaves in golden collars that burned of a plenty there with her, and nine female thralls, and eight male slaves of the Angles that were of gentle birth and battle-captured.

And there were live hawks so burned, and the two hawk-boys with their birds.
But I, the drink-boy, Ragnar Lodbrog, did not burn.

I was eleven, and unafraid, and had never worn woven cloth on my body.

And as the flames sprang up, and Elgiva sang her death-song, and the thralls and slaves screeched their unwillingness to die, I tore away my fastenings, leaped, and gained the fens, the gold collar of my slavehood still on my neck, footing it with the hounds loosed to tear me down.
In the fens were wild men, masterless men, fled slaves, and outlaws, who were hunted in sport as the wolves were hunted.
For three years I knew never roof nor fire, and I grew hard as the frost, and would have stolen a woman from the Juts but that the Frisians by mischance, in a two days' hunt, ran me down.

By them I was looted of my gold collar and traded for two wolf-hounds to Edwy, of the Saxons, who put an iron collar on me, and later made of me and five other slaves a present to Athel of the East Angles.