Saxo Banish Other Pretenders

7. 3. When the subsequent death of his wife had enabled him to
recover his former celebrity and he had repaired, so to speak, his
godhead’s bad name, Odin returned from exile and forced all those
who had worn the marks of divine rank in his absence to resign them,
as though they had been borrowed, and he dispersed the covens of
sorcerers which had sprung up, like shadows before the oncoming of
his sacred brightness. He checked them with the command not only
to abandon their pretended holiness, but also to leave the country,
considering that those who had so profanely obtruded themselves into
heaven deserved to be thrust from that earth.

8. i. In the meantime Asmund, Svipdag’s son, engaged in battle with
Hadding to avenge his father; when he realized that his own son
Henrik, whom he loved even more than his own life, had fallen
fighting courageously, his soul yearned for death and he hated the
sunlight; this was the lament he composed:


- Gesta Danorum, Book I