Ostensibly derived from a Latin poem which Jón Halldórsson, Bishop of Skálholt, found in France, it became a prototype of the maiden king medieval Icelandic bridal-quest romances: it seems to have been the earliest of these, and was followed by many more.
After sending her maid down to examine Klárus, Serena invites him and his troops to a feast in her tower, and he brings along sixty men.
She offers him the blade of a jewel encrusted knife, but at the last moment as he is prone to accept it slices it downwards, so that it cuts his tunic and streaks his chest, and mocks him for the scums and barbarians he brought to her chamber.
At the end of the third year Perus instructs Klárus that they shall return to France, but that he must go disguised and under the name of Eskelvarð, king of Ethiopia, with the aim to ask for Serena's hand.
Serena sends her maid to ask who arrives with such grandeur and display of wealth and riches, and if the grand tents would be able to be sold or gifted to her.
Once Eskelvarð takes his drink a deep sleep falls upon him: where Serena orders him to be dragged from the bed, flogged until bare, and left on the floor.
This repeats for three days, until Klárus invites her to his own chamber where he dresses her in fine clothing, gives her a feast to mend her sorrows.
Having shown that she is willing to follow her husband even through poverty and hardship knowing her true rank, she is rewarded her character and became the queen of Saxony, ruler and loyal wife.
In the words of Shaun F. D. Hughes, 'It is clear from the epilogue to Klári saga, that Bishop Jón is using the romance genre as an elaborate exemplum to promote his uncompromising views on the responsible behaviors of wives towards their husbands'.