Swerting

Family: Saxons · First appears: Book Six · Part 5

Life events

Swerting and Hanef rejected Frode’s rule and openly rebelled.(Book Six · Part 5)
- With: Frode (father of Ingild) Hanef
- “Swerting and Hanef, the kings of Saxony, disowned his sway, and tried to rebel openly.”
Frode defeated Swerting and Hanef in battle and imposed a poll-tax on the conquered peoples.(Book Six · Part 5)
- With: Frode (father of Ingild) Hanef
- “He overcame them in battle, and imposed on the conquered peoples a poll-tax of a coin, which they were to pay as his slaves.”
Frode and Swerting killed each other in the course of Swerting’s plot to burn the king.(Book Six · Part 9)
- With: Frode (father of Ingild)
- “For he had resolved to surprise the king under the pretence of a banquet, and burn him to death; but the king forestalled and slew him, though slain by him in return.”

enemies with Frode (father of Ingild) “And, after his father's death, while he was in his twelfth year, Swerting and Hanef, the kings of Saxony, disowned his sway, and tried to rebel openly. He overcame them in battle”

enemies with Frode (father of Ingild) “Frode took his forces over the Elbe, and killed him near the village of Hanofra (Hanover), so named after Hanef. But Swerting, though he was equally moved by the distress of his countrymen, said nothing about the ills of his land, and revolved a plan for freedom with a spirit yet more dogged than Hanef's. Men often doubt whether this zeal was liker to vice or to virtue; but I certainly censure it as criminal, because it was produced by a treacherous desire to revolt. It may have seemed most expedient to seek the freedom of the country, but it was not lawful to strive after this freedom by craft and treachery. Therefore, since the deed of Swerting was far from honourable, neither will it be called expedient; for it is nobler to attack openly him whom you mean to attack, and to exhibit hatred in the light of day, than to disguise a real wish to do harm under a spurious show of friendship. But the gains of crime are inglorious, its fruits are brief and fading. For even as that soul is slippery, which hides its insolent treachery by stealthy arts, so is it right that whatsoever is akin to guilt should be frail and fleeting. For guilt has been usually found to come home to its author; and rumour relates that such was the fate of Swerting. For he had resolved to surprise the king under the pretence of a banquet, and burn him to death; but the king forestalled and slew him, though slain by him in return.”

enemies with Starkad “Also it was my doing that the Teutons were punished, when, in avenging my lord, I laid low over their cups thy sons, O Swerting, who were guilty of the wicked slaughter of Frode.”

Extracted from the original text of The Danish History, Books I–IX. Made with Rho MD.