Of such stuff was
made the bishop who
"Used his trusty Danish sword
As the Pope his staff in Rome."
Wherever danger threatens Valdemar and Absalon, Esbern is found,
too, earning the name of the Fleet (Snare), which the people had
fondly given to their favorite. Where the fighting was hardest, he
was sure to be. The King's son had ventured too far and was caught
in a tight place by an overwhelming force, when Esbern pushed his
ship in between him and the enemy and bore the brunt of a fight that
came near to making an end of him. He had at last only a single man
left, but the two made a stand against a hundred. "When the heathen
saw his face they fled in terror." At last they knocked him
senseless with a stone and would have killed him, but in the nick of
time the King's men came to the rescue.
Coming home from Norway he ran afoul of forty pirate ships under
the coast of Seeland. He tried to steal past; forty against one were
heavy odds. But it was moonlight and he was discovered. The pirates
lay across his course and cut him off. Esbern made ready for a fight
and steered straight into the middle of them. The steersman
complained that he had no armor, and he gave him his own. He beat
his pursuers off again and again, but the wind slackened and they
were closing in once more, swearing by their heathen gods that they
would have him dead or alive, for a Danish prisoner on one of their
ships had told who he was.
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