Hromund the Lame (Icelandic settler said to have lived around the 10th or 11th century)
“I’m not doomed to die
today or yesterday,
I’m getting ready
to go to war.
The soldiers don’t worry me,
waving their red shields,
long ago our destiny
was decided.”
- A poem attributed to Hromund the Lame recorded by Sturla Thordarson in chapter 168 of the Sturlubók (produced c. 1275-1280), the oldest existent version of the Icelandic Book of Settlements. The translation used here was by Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards (University of Manitoba Press, 1772, 2006).