Saxo Formation and Cloud

8. 16. Meanwhile Uffi, who had an amazingly beautiful daughter,
issued a proclamation that he would bestow her on whoever took
Hadding’s life. This bargain greatly excited one Thuning, who rallied
together a band of Biarmians and applied himself to achieve the
coveted felicity. While coasting Norway with his navy in an effort to
intercept him, Hadding noticed an old man on the shore waving his
mantle to and fro to indicate that he wished him to put in to land.
Though his fellow-sailors grumbled that this deviation from their
course would be disastrous, he took him aboard and found in him the
man to supervise the disposition of his troops; he had this careful
system* for the arrangement of his columns: in the first row he would
put two men, four in the second, then increase the third to eight, and
step up each succeeding rank by doubling the numbers of the one in
front. It was he who ordered the contingents of slingers at the sides to
drop back into the rear and attached them to the lines of archers. After
he had distributed his companies into this wedge formation, he took up
his stance behind the warriors’ backs and, drawing out from a small bag
hung round his neck a crossbow, which first appeared little, but soon
jutted forward in an extensive arc, he fitted ten shafts to its cord and,
briskly shooting them off all at once, gave the enemy as many wounds.
The Biarmians then changed their weapons for magic arts and with
spells dissolved the heavens into rain, destroying the pleasant aspect of
the sky with miserable showers. The old man for his part met and
dispelled the mass of storm that had arisen with a cloud of his own, and
by this obstruction curbed its drenching downpour. At his departure
following Hadding’s victory the old man predicted that he would not
be destroyed through foemen’s violence but by a self-chosen kind of
death, and at the same time told him he must venture upon glorious
campaigns, not petty fighting, and seek action in remote parts rather
than on his borders.

8. 17. After leaving him, Hadding was called by Uffi to a sham
conference in Uppsala. His escort was lost through treachery and he
only escaped under cover of night. When the Danes sought the exit of
the hall where they had supposedly gathered for a feast, there was
someone ready to shear off each head with a blade as it was poked out
of doors. Retaliating for this outrage in battle, he quelled Uffi and,
laying aside his hatred, consigned his body to a mausoleum of
outstanding workmanship, admitting his enemy’s greatness by a
magnificent, finely wrought tomb. Thus, though he used to hound
the living man furiously, he glorified him at his decease with
expensive honours. To make the defeated nation friendly towards
him he gave the crown to Hunding, Uffi’s brother, so that in
appearance the rule should continue in Asmund’s family instead of
being transferred to strangers.


- Gesta Danorum, Book I


("This once again is the traveller Odin, who, as the battle god, here teaches Hadding the svtnfylking formation for his troops, so called because its shape resembles a boar’s head" - Footnote included with translation)