This summary recounts the story of the older of the two main recensions of Bósa saga, which is the one that is usually edited and translated.
But chronology is flattened so that Hring is made a contemporary of Harald Wartooth, King of Denmark and Sweden.
Herraud's best friend is Bósi, the younger son of a former viking named Thvari or Bryn-Thvari by Brynhild, a former shieldmaiden and a daughter of King Agnar of Nóatún.
Herraud, discontented, gains permission from his father, over Sjód's objections, be allowed to set off on a Viking expedition with five ships.
Now it chances that Bósi's ship was driven to Wendland, where Sjód happens to be on a purchasing expedition for King Hring.
An erotic encounter between Bósi and a farmer's daughter is told in amusingly explicit riddling dialogue.
The two companions are able to kill a vulture that guards the temple of Jomali in Bjarmaland, obtaining its egg; they slay the priestess Kolfrosta, the mother of King Harek of Bjarmaland; and they rescue Hleid (Hleið), the sister of King Godmund (Guðmundr) of Glæsisvellir, who has been magically brought there to be turned into the new priestess.
At that point Herraud and Bósi head off to aid King Harald in the famous Battle of Bråvalla and are among the few survivors.
Siggeir and his brother Hrærek learn about Hleid's abduction from Bjarmaland by Herraud and Bósi and their destruction of the temple, and they set out for Götaland.
The tale explains at the end that this serpent had sprung from the vulture's egg which Herraud and Bósi had obtained in their quest.