Then the champions came and climbed the hill on the opposite side; and, seeking a spot sheltered from the winds wherein to sit, they lit a fire and drove off the cold.
At last, not seeing Starkad, they sent a man to the crest of the hill, to watch his coming more clearly, as from a watch-tower.

This man climbed to the top of the lofty mountain, and saw, on its sloping side, an old man covered shoulder-high with the snow that showered down.

He asked him if he was the man who was to fight according to the promise.
Starkad declared that he was.

Then the rest came up and asked him whether he had resolved to meet them all at once or one by one.

But he said, "Whenever a surly pack of curs yelps at me, I commonly send them flying all at once, and not in turn." Thus he let them know that he would rather fight with-them all together than one by one, thinking that his enemies should be spurned with words first and deeds afterwards.
The fight began furiously almost immediately, and he felled six of them without receiving any wound in return; and though the remaining three wounded him so hard in seventeen places that most of his bowels gushed out of his belly, he slew them notwithstanding, like their brethren.
Disembowelled, with failing strength, he suffered from dreadful straits of thirst, and, crawling on his knees in his desire to find a draught, he longed for water from the streamlet that ran close by.