Page:Icelandic Poetry or the Edda of Sæmund (1797).pdf/35

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xxxv.

Of some huge eagle spread[1] the severed ribs
Of Ella, in the shield-roof’d hall they thought
One day from Ella’s skull to quaff the mead,
Their valours guerdon.

Their valours guerd Wild the Runic faith,
And wild the realms where Scandinavian Chiefs
And Scalds arose, and hence the Scalds’ strong verse

  1. Apud Anglos, Danos, aliasque nationes Boreales, victor ignominia summâ debellatum adversarium affecturus, gladium circa scapulas ad spinam dorsi adigebat, costasque, amplissimo per corporis longitudinem facto vulnere, utrinque a spinâ seperabet, quæ, ad latera deductæ, alas repræsentabent Aquilinas. Hoc genus mortis vocabant Aquilam in dorso alicujus delincere. Glossarium Islandicum M. S. S. ejusmodi vulnus sive plagam testatur. In Jarlasagu, “tunc Comes Einarus in dorso Halfdani Aquilinam excitavit plagam, ita ut gladuim dorso adigerit, omnesque costas a spinâ seperaret usque ad lumbos, indeque pulmones extraxit.” In Ormsagu, “Ormerus evaginato gladio in dorso Erusi Aquilinam inflexit plagam, separatis a dorso costis, and pulmonibus exemptis.

    Stephanus Stephanius.

    The death of Regner Lothbrog is well known. His sons revenged him by thus executing Ella of Northumberland.