At the same time Siward, the king of the Goths, is said to have had two sons, Wemund and Osten, and a daughter Alfhild, who showed almost from her cradle such faithfulness to modesty that she continually kept her face muffled in her robe, lest she should cause her beauty to provoke the passion of another.

Her father banished her into very close keeping, and gave her a viper and a snake to rear, wishing to defend her chastity by the protection of these reptiles when they came to grow up.

For it would have been hard to pry into her chamber when it was barred by so dangerous a bolt.

He also enacted that if any man tried to enter it, and failed, he must straightway yield his head to be taken off and impaled on a stake.

The terror which was thus attached to wantonness chastened the heated spirits of the young men.
Alf, the son of Sigar, thinking that peril of the attempt only made it nobler, declared himself a wooer, and went to subdue the beasts that kept watch beside the room of the maiden; inasmuch as, according to the decree, the embraces of the maiden were the prize of their subduer.