Chapter CXII: Swein, Asleif’s Son’s Fall

NEXT morning Swein and his men arose and armed themselves, and went to the town; and when they came near the gates the Dýflin men ranged themselves on both sides from the gates along by the pits. Swein and his men, not being on their guard, fell into them. Some of the townsmen ran immediately to the gates, and others to the pits, and attacked Swein’s men with weapons. It was difficult for them to defend themselves, and Swein perished there in the pit, with all those who had entered the town. It was said that Swein was the last man who died there, and that he spake these words before his fall: “Know all men, whether I die to-day or not, that I am the holy Earl Rögnvald’s henchman, and my confidence is where he is with God.” Swein’s surviving followers went then to their ships, and put out to sea; and nothing is said of their voyage until they came to the Orkneys. Here is the end of Swein’s history; and it has been said that he was the greatest man in the Western lands, either in old times or at the present day, of those who had not a higher title than he had. After his death his sons Olaf and Andrés divided their patrimony. The next summer after his death they raised the end walls of the large drinking-hall which he had in Gáreksey. Andrés, the son of Swein, married Frída, the daughter of Kolbein Hruga, and sister to Bishop Bjarni.