Just put your toe in. You need to accumulate some materials to help you handle the swamps that can only be found in the swamps so run around the edges for a while. One of the most important things that you need to find in the swamps are your first set of turnip seeds.You need to plant them and grow some and expand them before you are really ready for the swamp. You need them to upgrade your cooking station and to use them as ingredients for better food. The flowers are bright yellow and easy to spot in the swamps but they are quite rare. You might have to wander a bit deeper into the swamps and be prepared to sprint out if you draw too much attention.

You also need drops from dragur and leeches. For leeches just walk up to the edge of the water and let them come to you. You can use your finewood bow on them but its takes 3 or 4 shots to kill one and they have an annoying tendency to run away when they are down to a sliver of health and then despawn so your best bet is to come to the very edge of the water and wait for them to gather and then use a melee weapon from the bank of the water on them. Leeches don't do too much damage from the attack the issue with them is the DOT poison damage that ticks away after getting hit. If you get your self in the right place and stay onshore you can kill a couple and grab the drops. If you get poisoned back away and use a small healing mead. The uptick on health from the mead will counter the down tick from the poison. You can also just take a poison resist mead and wade in. A lot of players think the poison resist meads don''t work properly. That's because you have to drink it before you take the poison damage for it to be effective. If you drink it after you have been poisoned it doesn't reduce the damage from the attack(s) taken before the mead was consumed.

You'll get swarmed by dragur and skeletons only at night or if you are near a point of interest (like a crypt, a body pile, or a dragur village). If you see more than 1 dragur in the day time go into sneak mode and look around to see if you can spot the POI. If its a body pile you can eliminate it from range with your bow. Body piles spawn more dragur and have an annoying tendency to spawn dragur elite. You'll want to eliminate most of the body piles you find but save a couple to farm dragur drops after you get iron gear.

If you do get swarmed there are a couple of things you can do. One is to use the secondary attack with a bronze atgeir. This weapon does pierce damage which isn't very effective against most of the things in the swamp but its has cleave which means it does full damage against multiple targets which should stagger them and give you a chance to back away (or run away). It takes quite a bit of stamina to use it so keep an eye if that's the way you want to go. Attack, back away and regain a bit of stamina, repeat making sure that you back away toward a different biome (remember you should only be on the edge of the swamp). You can also use the back away tactic with a bronze buckler and a single handed weapon (mace is effective on most things in the swamp) and lead swarms of swamp creatures to the meadows where they will attack any greylings, deer, boar, and neck they encounter which will give you a chance to snipe a bit with your bow and recover some stamina and health. Even better if you retreat into the black forest and have your swarm run into a group of greydwarves or a troll (troll is especially helpful against an abomination).

Handling an abomination is tedious. They are very resistant to pierce damage (arrows) but they take extra damage from fire (flaming arrows). You can use the back away and dodge trick while pelting them with flaming arrows or you can kite them with your axe. Keep a stamina mead on you if things get dicey abominations are slow enough that you can out run them and get away if you have enough stamina.

If all else fails pop your Eikthyr forsaken power and sprint away. If you have enough stamina (or a stamina mead) you might be able to get completely away and even if you can't you'll spread the mobs out. They all have different speeds. Leeches can't leave the water, skeletons are fast, dragurs are slower, and the abomination is slow. Spreading them out will give you more time to deal with each group.

To handle the foul smell from the swamp raid the trick it to not handle it. The raid spawns a total of 3 entities (dragur or skeleton). If you kill one, another immediately spawns at the center point of the raid. The raid lasts 150 seconds if you stay within the raid circle. If you exit the raid circle (and stay out of it) the raid will last 3 game days. If your base isn't protected by earthen walls and a moat you'll come back to a completely annihilated base. Instead just alternate walking and sprinting around the perimeter of your base (making sure you stay inside the raid circle) and occasionally firing an arrow to whittle them down a bit (but make sure you don't kill any). Lead them a merry chase around the outside of your base so they don't damage anything until the raid expires completely and then finish them off that way no more will spawn. Later on when you have an iron buckler and better gear you'll want to kill then all while the raid lasts for the dragur drops.

In any case, good luck. Skoal!