ABSTRACT
IN the mountainous parts of Norway lying near the frontiers of Vastergotland there lived twin brothers, champions, named Skat and Hial, who assumed such excessive insolence that, in their unbridled wantonness, they would tear from their parents virgins of exquisite beauty and defile them sexually. 1 So it occurred that, marking out for rape even Esa, the daughter of Olaf, ruler of the Varmlanders, they charged her father that, if he did not wish her to be submitted to foreigners’ lust, he, or some deputy, must do battle to defend his child. This was highly ignominious for a fond father, and even though he was already gasping under the disadvantages of a broken old age, he still tried to rouse the 254worn-out muscles of his body to the fully justified defence of his daughter, and to enlist the skill and strength of his relations.
Skat Hial
Esa, king of Varmland’s daughter
