Around Stockholm one winter the commander Master Hugo realized his ships were at the mercy of the enemy Danes. He cut trees, made a wooden wall around the ships and poured water over the wall; it soon froze. Just outside the wall, he cut the ice to make a moat for his ice fortress, and in the night the cold and a scatter of light snow hid what he had done. The Danes attacked, they did not notice the thin ice on the moat, men and machines tumbled down into the frigid waters. The pirates could wait in their stockade for warmer weather so they could sail on.
