He was our only heir, the only thought of his father's mind, and given to his mother with comfort from above.

An evil lot, which heaps years of ill-fortune on the joyous, chokes mirth in mourning, and troubles our destiny.

For it is lamentable and wretched to drag out a downcast life, to draw breath through dismal days and to chafe at foreboding.

But whatsoever things are bound by the prophetic order of the fates, whatsoever are shadowed in the secrets of the divine plan, whatsoever are foreseen and fixed in the course of the destinies, no change of what is transient shall cancel these things." When he had thus spoken, Halfdan condemned Hildiger for sloth in avowing so late their bond of brotherhood; he declared he had kept silence that he might not be thought a coward for refusing to fight, or a villain if he fought; and while intent on these words of excuse, he died.
But report had given out among the Danes that Hildiger had overthrown Halfdan.

After this, Siwar, a Saxon of very high birth, began to be a suitor for Gurid, the only survivor of the royal blood among the Danes.
Secretly she preferred Halfdan to him, and imposed on her wooer the condition that he should not ask her in marriage till he had united into one body the kingdom of the Danes, which was now torn limb from limb, and restored by arms what had been wrongfully taken from her.