ABSTRACT
2 HARALD Hardradi, that most famous king of Norway, stayed in his youth with the king of Byzantium, but, being found guilty of the crime of manslaughter, was ordered to pit himself against a captive dragon, so that he might be torn to pieces. As he was going to the dungeon, a servant, nobly devoted to him, spontaneously offered himself as a companion to share in his penalty. The guard commander examined each of them carefully and, when he had searched them and found no weapons, sent them in through the mouth of the cave. He stripped the servant naked, but made an exception of Harald and, for the sake of 264decency, let him wear a linen loin-cloth, though nothing else. Harald secretly gave an armlet to the guard, who then strewed the floor with small fish, so that the dragon might have something to bate the onset of its first hunger, and that the eyes of the prisoners, dulled by the darkness of the prison, should at least gain some slender means of seeing from the gleam of the fishes’ scales. Then Harald chose out bones from the skeletons there and wrapped them closely and tightly in his loin-cloth, gathering them together into one round mass, and made something resembling a club.
Harald, king of Norway
Captive dragon Faithful servant
Armlet Small fish
Scales give light in darkness
