For three more true sayings he obtains fire, and gets back to his vessel.
(d) With good wind they make Grassless Land, go ashore, find a huge, rocky cavern, strike a flint to kindle a fire at the entrance as a safeguard against demons, and a torch to light them as they explored the cavern.
(e) First appears iron seats set amid crawling snakes.
(f) Next is sluggish water flowing over sand.
(g) Last a steep, sloping cavern is reached, in a chamber of which lay Outgarth-Loke chained, huge and foul.
(h) Thorkill plucks a hair of his beard "as big as a cornel-wood spear." The stench that arose was fearful; the demens and snakes fell upon the invaders at once; only Thorkill and five of the crew, who had sheltered themselves with hides against the virulent poison the demons and snakes cast, which would take a head off at the neck if it fell upon it, got back to their ship.
(i) By vow to the "God that made the world", and offerings, a good voyage was made back, and Germany reached, where Thorkill became a Christian.

Only two of his men survived the effects of the poison and stench, and he himself was scarred and spoilt in the face.
(k) When he reached the king, Guthrum would not listen to his tale, because it was prophesied to him that he would die suddenly if he heard it; nay, he even sent men to smite him as he lay in bed, but, by the device of laying a log in his place, he escaped, and going to the king as he sat at meat, reproached him for his treachery.
(l) Guthrum bade him tell his story, but died of horror at hearing his god Loke foully spoken of, while the stench of the hair that Thorkill produced, as Othere did his horn for a voucher of his speech, slew many bystanders.
This is the regular myth of Loke, punished by the gods, lying bound with his own soils' entrails on three sharp stones and a sword-blade, (this latter an addition, when the myth was made stones were the only blades), with snakes' venom dripping on to him, so that when it falls on him he shakes with pain and makes earthquakes--a Titan myth in answer to the question, "Why does the earth quake ?" The vitriolic power of the poison is excellently expressed in the story.

The plucking of the hair as a token is like the plucking of a horn off the giant or devil that occurs in some folk-tale.
MAGIC AND FOLK-SCIENCE.
There is a belief in magic throughout Saxo's work, showing how fresh heathendom still was in men's minds and memories.

His explanations, when he euhemerizes, are those of his day.
By means of spells all kinds of wonders could be effected, and the powers of nature forced to work for the magician or his favourite.
"Skin-changing" (so common in "Landnamaboc") was as well known as in the classic world of Lucian and Apuleius; and, where Frode perishes of the attacks of a witch metamorphosed into a walrus.
"Mist" is induced by spells to cover and hide persons, as in Homer, and "glamour" is produced by spells to dazzle foemen's sight.

To cast glamour and put confusion into a besieged place a witch is employed by the beleaguerer, just as William the Conqueror used the witch in the Fens against Hereward's fortalice.