book covers the years 982 to 990. While still a youth, Orm is abducted by a Viking party led by Krok and they sail south. They fall captive to Andalusian Muslims and serve as galley slaves for more than two years, later becoming members of Almansur's bodyguard for four years, raiding Santiago de Compostela under his command. They return to Denmark to King Harald Bluetooth's court where Orm meets Ylva. Orm later returns to Scania with Rapp. Orm and Rapp join a Viking party raiding England again after a brief period of peace in that area following the reconquest of the Danelaw in the mid-10th century by King Edgar, Ethelred's father. Orm joins a party led by Thorkell the High in England and when he learns that Harald's daughter Ylva is staying in London, gets baptised and marries Ylva. They move to a neglected farm, his mother's inheritance in Göinge, northern Skåne, near the border with Småland. During the following years (992 to 995), Orm prospers, and Ylva gives birth to twin girls (Oddny and Ludmilla), a son, Harald, and later to another son (though possibly from Rainald), Svarthöfde (Blackhair in the Michael Meyer translation). Meanwhile, Orm also gets busy in converting the heathens in the district, with the help of Father Willibald. The year 1000 passes without Christ returning. In 1007, with Orm now forty-two, his brother Are returns from the east after serving the Byzantine Empire, bringing the news of a treasure ("Bulgar gold") he had hidden. Orm decides to travel to the Dnieper weirs in Kievan Rus for the gold, and together with Toke and the Finnveding chieftain Olof mans a ship. They recover the treasure and return home safely. But on their return they encounter an unexpected crisis at home - Rainald, the rather ridiculous failed German Christian missionary, had become a renegade, turned into a Pagan priest of the old Norse gods and the leader of a formidable band of robbers and outlaws, and causes great havoc before being finally overcome. Following this final crisis and from then on, Orm and Toke live in peace and plenty as good neighbours, and Svarthöfde Ormsson becomes a famous Viking, fighting for Canute the Great. The story ends with the statement that Orm and Toke in their old age "did never tire of telling of the years when they had rowed the Caliph's ship and served my lord