THE SCENE: It is hard to imagine a more gentlemanly exchange than the one that occurs between these two Viking reavers while they settle the terms of their single-combat.
THE TEXT: There was an island lying in the middle of the sea, which each of the reavers, bringing his ships up on either side, was holding. The captains were tempted by the pleasant look of the beach, and the comeliness of the shores led them to look through the interior of the springtide woods, to go through the glades, and roam over the sequestered forests.
It was here that the advance of Koller and Horwendil brought them face to face without any witness. Then Horwendil endeavoured to address the king first, asking him in what way it was his pleasure to fight, and declaring that one best which needed the courage of as few as possible. For, said he, the duel was the surest of all modes of combat for winning the meed of bravery, because it relied only upon native courage, and excluded all help from the hand of another.
Koller marvelled at so brave a judgment in a youth, and said: “Since thou hast granted me the choice of battle, I think it is best to employ that kind which needs only the endeavours of two, and is free from all the tumult. Certainly it is more venturesome, and allows of a speedier award of the victory. This thought we share, in this opinion we agree of our own accord. But since the issue remains doubtful, we must pay some regard to gentle dealing, and must not give way so far to our inclinations as to leave the last offices undone. Let us, therefore, have this pious stipulation, that the conqueror shall give funeral rites to the conquered. For all allow that these are the last duties of human kind, from which no righteous man shrinks. For if it be righteous to have compassion on the calamities of another, how much more is it to pity one’s own? No man but obeys nature’s prompting; and he who slights it is a self-murderer.”
After mutually pledging their faiths to these terms, they began the battle. Nor was their strangeness of this meeting one another, nor the sweetness of that spring-green spot, so heeded as to prevent them from the fray. Horwendil, in his too great ardour, became keener to attack his enemy than to defend his own body; and, heedless of his shield, had grasped his sword with both hands; and his boldness did not fail. For by his rain of blows he destroyed Koller’s shield and deprived him of it, and at last hewed off his foot and drove him lifeless to the ground. Then, not to fail of his compact, he buried him royally, gave him a howe of lordly make and pompous obsequies.
– Gesta Danorum, Saxo Grammaticus, 12th Century AD
[Image Credit: Egill Skallagrímsson engaging in holmgang with Berg-Önundr by Johannes Flintoe]
