KINGS OF NORWAY. 151 refused to be baptized ; and he got there an immense sagaxil booty. So says Halldor Skualldre : — '^ From Spain I have much news to tell Of what our generous king befell. And first he routs the viking crew. At Cintra next the heathens slew; The men he treated as God's foes. Who dared the true faith to oppose. No man he spared who would not take The Christian faith for Jesus' sake.'* After this King Sigurd sailed Avith his fleet to Chaftes Lisbon, which is a great city in Spain, half Christian LisboA and half heathen ; for there lies the division between t^^^"- Christian Spain and heathen Spain*, and all the districts which lie west of the city are occupied by heathens. There King Sigurd had his third battle with the heathens, and gained the victory, and with it a great booty. So says Halldor Skualldre : — " The son of kings on Lisbon's plains A third and bloody battle gains. He and his Norsemen boldly land, Running their stout ships on the strand." Then King Sigurd sailed westAvards along heathen Spain, and brought up at a town called Alkassif ; and here he had his fourth battle with the heathens, and took the town, and killed so many people that the town was left empty. They got there also immense booty. So says Halldor Si^ualldre : — ^^ A fourth great battle^, I am told, Our Norse king and his people hold At Alkassi ; and here again The victory fell to our Norsemen."
- The heathen Spain would be the parts of the Peninsula occupied by
the Moors. I There is some difficulty in finding a town corresponding to this Alkassi. It cannot be Alkassir in Fez in Africa, as some have supposed, as the context does not agree with it; nor with Algesiras, which is within the Streights of Gibraltar (Norfasund), and it would have been so described. Alcasser de Sal lies too far inland to have been the place. Lady Grosvenor^ in her Yacht Voyage^ 1841, speaks of a Moorish palace near Seville, called Alcasir^ which would correspond best with the saga account. L 4
